First US bird flu death is announced in Louisiana

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First US bird flu death is announced in Louisiana

2025-01-07 18:23 Last Updated At：18:41

NEW YORK (AP) — The first U.S. bird flu death has been reported — a person in Louisiana who had been hospitalized with severe respiratory symptoms.

State health officials announced the death on Monday, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed it was the nation's first due to bird flu.

Health officials have said the person was older than 65, had underlying medical problems and had been in contact with sick and dead birds in a backyard flock. They also said a genetic analysis had suggested the bird flu virus had mutated inside the patient, which could have led to the more severe illness.

Few other details about the person have been disclosed.

Since March, 66 confirmed bird flu infections have been reported in the U.S., but previous illnesses have been mild and most have been detected among farmworkers exposed to sick poultry or dairy cows.

A bird flu death was not unexpected, virus experts said. There have been more than 950 confirmed bird flu infections globally since 2003, and more than 460 of those people died, according to the World Health Organization.

The bird flu virus "is a serious threat and it has historically been a deadly virus," said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health. “This is just a tragic reminder of that.”

Nuzzo noted a Canadian teen became severely ill after being infected recently. Researchers are still trying to gauge the dangers of the current version of the virus and determine what causes it to hit some people harder than others, she said.

“Just because we have seen mild cases does not mean future cases will continue to be mild,” she added.

In a statement, CDC officials described the Louisiana death as tragic but also said “there are no concerning virologic changes actively spreading in wild birds, poultry or cows that would raise the risk to human health.”

In two of the recent U.S. cases — an adult in Missouri and a child in California — health officials have not determined how they caught the virus. The origin of the Louisiana person's infection was not considered a mystery. But it was the first human case in the U.S. linked to exposure to backyard birds, according to the CDC.

Louisiana officials say they are not aware of any other cases in their state, and U.S. officials have said they do not have any evidence that the virus is spreading from person to person.

The H5N1 bird flu has been spreading widely among wild birds, poultry, cows and other animals. Its growing presence in the environment increases the chances that people will be exposed, and potentially catch it, officials have said.

Officials continue to urge people who have contact with sick or dead birds to take precautions, including wearing respiratory and eye protection and gloves when handling poultry.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Thousands flee as wildfires burn out of control in and around Los Angeles and homes are destroyed

2025-01-08 19:17 Last Updated At：19:21

LOS ANGELES (AP) — California firefighters battled wind-whipped wildfires that tore across the Los Angeles area, destroying homes, clogging roadways as tens of thousands fled and straining resources as the fires burned uncontained early Wednesday.

The flames from a fire that broke out Tuesday evening near a nature preserve in the inland foothills northeast of LA spread so rapidly that staff at a senior living center had to push dozens of residents in wheelchairs and hospital beds down the street to a parking lot. The residents waited there in their bedclothes as embers fell around them until ambulances, buses and even construction vans arrived to take them to safety.

Another blaze that started hours earlier ripped through the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity residences and memorialized by the Beach Boys in their 1960s hit “Surfin' USA.” In the frantic haste to get to safety, roadways became impassable when scores of people abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot, some toting suitcases.

The traffic jam on Palisades Drive prevented emergency vehicles from getting through and a bulldozer was brought in to push the abandoned cars to the side and create a path. Video along the Pacific Coast Highway showed widespread destruction of homes and businesses along the famed roadway.

Pacific Palisades resident Kelsey Trainor said the only road in and out of her neighborhood was blocked. Ash fell all around them while fires burned on both sides of the road.

“We looked across and the fire had jumped from one side of the road to the other side of the road,” Trainor said. “People were getting out of the cars with their dogs and babies and bags, they were crying and screaming."

A third wildfire started around 10:30 p.m. and quickly prompted evacuations in Sylmar, a San Fernando Valley community that is the northernmost neighborhood in Los Angeles. The causes of all three fires were under investigation.

Flames were being pushed by Santa Ana winds topping 60 mph (97 kph) in some places. The winds were expected to increase overnight, producing isolated gusts that could top 100 mph (160 kph) in mountains and foothills — including in areas that haven’t seen substantial rain in months.

The situation prompted the Los Angeles Fire Department to take the rare step of putting out a plea for off-duty firefighters to help. It was too windy for firefighting aircraft to fly, further hampering the fight.

Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on X early Wednesday that California had deployed more than 1,400 firefighting personnel to combat the blazes. “Emergency officials, firefighters, and first responders are all hands on deck through the night to do everything possible to protect lives,” Newsom said.

The erratic weather caused President Joe Biden to cancel plans to travel to inland Riverside County, where he was to announce the establishment of two new national monuments in the state. He remained in Los Angeles, where smoke was visible from his hotel, and was briefed on the wildfires. The Federal Emergency Management Agency approved a grant to help reimburse California for the firefighting cost.

Officials didn't give an estimate of structures damaged or destroyed in the Pacific Palisades wildfire, but they said about 30,000 residents were under evacuation orders and more than 13,000 structures were under threat. Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the scene and said many homes had burned.

By evening the flames had spread into neighboring Malibu and several people there were being treated for burn injuries and a firefighter had a serious head injury and was taken to a hospital, according to Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Erik Scott.

By early Wednesday, the Eaton fire, which started around 6:30 p.m. the day before, had quickly burned 1.6 square miles (4 square kilometers), according to fire officials. The Hurst fire jumped to 500 acres (202 hectares) and the Palisades fire, which started around around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday and sent up a dramatic plume of smoke visible across Los Angeles, had destroyed 4.5 square miles (11.6 square kilometers) according to Angeles National Forest. The fires were at 0% containment as of early Wednesday.

“By no stretch of the imagination are we out of the woods,” Newsom warned residents, saying the worst of the winds were expected between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 5 a.m. Wednesday. He declared a state of emergency.

As of Tuesday evening, nearly 167,000 people were without power in Los Angeles county, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us, due to the strong winds.

Recent dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, where there’s been very little rain so far this season. Southern California hasn’t seen more than 0.1 inches (0.25 centimeters) of rain since early May.

The neighborhood, which borders Malibu about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of downtown LA, includes hillside streets of tightly packed homes along winding roads nestled against the Santa Monica Mountains and stretches down to beaches along the Pacific Ocean.

Long-time Palisades resident Will Adams said he immediately went to pick his two kids up from St. Matthews Parish School when he heard the fire was nearby. Meanwhile, he said embers flew into his wife's car as she tried to evacuate.

“She vacated her car and left it running,” Adams said. She and many other residents walked down toward the ocean until it was safe.

Adams said he had never witnessed anything like this in the 56 years he’s lived there. He watched as the sky turned brown and then black as homes started burning. He could hear loud popping and bangs “like small explosions,” which he said he believes were the transformers exploding.

“It is crazy, it’s everywhere, in all the nooks and crannies of the Palisades. One home’s safe, the other one’s up in flames,” Adams said.

Actor James Woods posted footage of flames burning through bushes and past palm trees on a hill near his home. The towering orange flames billowed among the landscaped yards between the homes.

“Standing in my driveway, getting ready to evacuate,” Woods said in the short video on X.

Some trees and vegetation on the grounds of the Getty Villa were burned by late Tuesday, but staff and the museum collection remain safe, Getty President Katherine Fleming said in a statement. The museum located on the eastern end of the Pacific Palisades is a separate campus of the world-famous Getty Museum that focuses on the art and culture of ancient Greece and Rome. The fire also burned Palisades Charter High School.

Film studios canceled two movie premieres due to the fire and windy weather, and the Los Angeles Unified School District said it temporarily relocated students from three campuses in the Pacific Palisades area.

Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers Janie Har in San Francisco, Hallie Golden in Seattle and video journalist Eugene Garcia in Los Angeles contributed to this report.