Israel and Hamas agree to Gaza ceasefire and return of hostages
Israel and Hamas said they had agreed to a long-awaited ceasefire and hostage deal, the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to end a war...
U.S. reports first human death from H5N1 bird flu in Louisiana. Experts urge caution for those in contact with birds as the virus spreads among poultry and wildlife.
A U.S. patient hospitalized with H5N1 bird flu has died, the Louisiana Department of Health said on Monday, marking the country's first reported human death from the virus.
The patient, who has not been identified, was hospitalized with the virus on Dec. 18 after exposure to a combination of backyard chickens and wild birds, Louisiana health officials had said.
The patient was over age 65 and had underlying medical conditions, the officials said.
Nearly 70 people in the U.S. have contracted bird flu since April, most of them farmworkers, as the virus has circulated among poultry flocks and dairy herds, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Federal and state officials have said the risk to the general public remains low.
The ongoing bird flu outbreak, which began in poultry in 2022, has killed nearly 130 million wild and domestic poultry and has sickened 917 dairy herds, according to the CDC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The CDC has said genomic data of the virus taken from the Louisiana person showed it belongs to the D1.1 genotype related to other D1.1 viruses recently detected in wild birds and poultry in the U.S., as well as in recent human cases in British Columbia, Canada, and Washington state. It is different from the B3.13 genotype circulating in U.S. dairy cows.
"While the current public health risk for the general public remains low, people who work with birds, poultry or cows, or have recreational exposure to them, are at higher risk," the Louisiana state health department said in a statement.
The CDC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"This one's a little different because this person was infected with a strain of influenza that was spread from wild birds to their domestic birds and then to themselves." said Clinical Assistant Professor Sarah R. Michaels of
Department of Tropical Medicine & Infectious Disease at Tulane University in New Orleans, explaining that cold and flu season is in full swing right now. "The risk is pretty localized, although it does seem to be growing across the U.S.".
Most U.S. bird flu cases reported this year have been mild, with symptoms including conjunctivitis, or pink eye.
"Keep those bird feeders up to feed the birds in your neighborhood." said Michaels, when asked by Reuters about the risk involved in having bird feeders for wild birds in a person's neighborhood. "But if you have a backyard flock, try and keep that distance from the flock to not encourage that interaction between your birds that you're either growing because of agriculture or your backyard poultry and those wild birds that are passing through."
Worldwide, more than 950 human cases of bird flu have been reported to the World Health Organization, and about half have resulted in death.
Video from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) showed on Friday (19 September) the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupting and spewing lava.
At least eight people have died and more than 90 others were injured following a catastrophic gas tanker explosion on a major highway in Mexico City’s Iztapalapa district on Wednesday, authorities confirmed.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
Authorities in California have identified the dismembered body discovered in a Tesla registered to singer D4vd as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had been missing from Lake Elsinore since April 2024.
A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on 13 September with no tsunami threat, coming just weeks after the region endured a devastating 8.8-magnitude quake — the strongest since 1952.
More than 200 health facilities in war-hit eastern Congo have run out of medicines due to widespread looting and supply chain disruptions during fighting this year, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday.
Indian authorities have launched a manslaughter investigation after at least 14 children died from a toxic cough syrup in Madhya Pradesh, raising fresh concerns over the country’s pharmaceutical safety.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to impose 100% tariffs on branded and patented pharmaceuticals manufactured abroad poses a serious threat to Germany’s pharmaceutical sector, according to the Berlin-based industry group Verband Forschender Arzneimittelhersteller (vfa).
A flock of Canadian ostriches set to be culled, after two dead birds tested positive for avian flu, has been granted a last-minute stay of execution from Canada's highest court - for now.
The Trump administration's plan to dramatically raise fees for H-1B visas is drawing concern from U.S. healthcare groups who say the move could worsen staffing shortages as more than half of healthcare workers consider changing jobs within the next year.
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