 "Undated USDA handout photo of avian influenza virus being harvested from a chicken egg as part of a diagnostic process. Reuters")
A man from Washington state has become the first person to have died from a rare strain of bird flu, although authorities have ensured that the risk to the public from the disease is low.
The individual, an older adult, was being treated for a bird flu called H5N5 after getting infected with the strain, possibly making him the first person to suffer from the disease, according to a statement from the Washington State Department of Health.
The man from Grays Harbor County, about 78 miles (125 kilometers) southwest of Seattle, had a backyard flock of domestic poultry that had been exposed to wild birds, health officials said.
“The risk to the public remains low," the statement from state health officials said. “No other people involved have tested positive for avian influenza.”
While authorities have said that they will monitor all the people who came in contact with the deceased person, they ensured that “there is no evidence of transmission of this virus between people.”
The man was believed to be the first human case of avian influenza in the US in nine months and the first individual to be infected by the H5N5 strain in the world. Scientists are closely watching the situation. Dr Richard Webby, a virologist, warned that while “it’s not an easy leap for this virus … to switch from being a duck virus to being a human virus … I certainly wouldn’t bet on the fact that it can’t make that leap.”
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View AllEarlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a statement about the infection that said no information would suggest “the risk to public health has increased as a result of this case.”
H5N5 is not believed to be a greater threat to human health than the H5N1 virus behind a wave of 70 reported human infections in the U.S. in 2024 and 2025. Most of those have been mild illnesses in workers on dairy and poultry farms.
The distinction between H5N5 and H5N1 lies in a protein involved in releasing the virus from an infected cell and promoting spread to surrounding cells.