The patient was hospitalized in December with severe respiratory symptoms after coming into contact with infected birds.
The United States has recorded its first death from bird flu after a 65-year-old patient he was hospitalized on December 18 he died.
The Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) announced this Monday. The patient was the first person in the US to be hospitalized for the virus, known as H5N1.
“LDH's extensive public health investigation has found no additional cases of H5N1 or evidence of cross-contamination. This patient is the only person with H5N1 in Louisiana,” the state agency said in a social media post. “The risk to public health at this time remains low.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed 66 civil cases entirely in the US since April, though none as strong as the Louisiana case.
Officials believe the patient, who was already there, contracted bird flu from exposure to backyard chickens and wild birds.
Although the risk to humans remains low so far, millions of birds and cows have been killed to stop the spread of the virus.
The CDC says most of the people who have contracted bird flu in recent months were exposed through their work with contaminated livestock and cattle.
About 40 of the 66 cases were linked to dairy cows, and another 23 were hunted to farms and put down.
“Although the risk to the health of the general public is still low, people who work with birds, poultry or cattle, or who enjoy them, are at high risk,” LDH said in a statement.
California announced a emergency situation due to bird flu in mid-December after western dairy cows were infected with the virus. As of Monday, the CDC report 701 confirmed cases of dairy cattle in California, out of 917 total.
Most of the cases of bird flu in the US are also concentrated in California, which has a large agricultural sector. But no human-to-human transmission has been recorded. All but one of the cases in the state were linked to cattle.
The CDC announced in late December that genetic analysis of a patient in Louisiana showed that the virus had mutated inside the patient, which would allow the virus to better bind to receptors in the upper respiratory tract of humans.
Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Minnesota, told the Associated Press that the situation was concerning, but not critical.
“Is this an indication that we may be close to a virus that spreads easily between people? No,” said Osterholm. “Right now, this is the key that stays in the door, but it doesn't open.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) said in a public health assessment in December that the global impact of the disease remained “low”.