Washington reports first US bird flu death of 2026; health officials say risk to the public is low

A person in Yakima County, Washington, who caught bird flu after being exposed to infected dairy cows has died following a severe illness, county health officials said Sunday.

This is the first known person in the US to die from complications from avian influenza in 2026 and the third in the US to die from bird flu since February 2024, when the virus jumped into dairy cattle for the first time.

On October 31, the Yakima County Health District reported that a person who had come into contact with infected cattle was hospitalized with a severe case of bird flu. The person had underlying health conditions, but the county did not specify what they were. On November 1, the county reported that the person had died. Yakima County health officials said they are closely monitoring the contacts of the person who died to ensure that they didn’t pass the infection to anyone else.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded bird flu cases in more than 70 people in the US since 2024. Most of the people who’ve become ill have worked on farms with infected cattle or poultry. Health officials say that most cases have been mild and all have been so-called dead-end infections, in which a virus jumps from an animal to a person but doesn’t spread farther.

No human-to-human transmission of bird flu has been documented in the US. Health officials say the risk to the public remains low.

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Three cases have been identified in people in the Yakima County Health District this year: a mild case identified last month, the person who died and a third case reported over the weekend.

All three Washington cases have occurred since mid-October and resulted from exposure to infected cows. The third case, like the first case, has mild symptoms and has not been hospitalized, county health district officials said.

State health officials said they have reported all three cases to the CDC. So far, the agency has not included them on its bird flu dashboard .

Since October 8, 33 dairy herds infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus have been reported in Washington. The state is urging people who work at the dairies to wear personal protective equipment and report their symptoms if they feel ill.

Dr. Dave Atteberry, the public health officer for the Yakima health district, said the dairies with infected cows were found in early October through milk testing by the Washington State Department of Agriculture and the US Department of Agriculture.

Public health workers with the county then reached out to the affected farms and enrolled dairy workers in a text-based health screening tool that checks daily for symptoms including cough, fever or red eyes. If the workers report any, the health department follows up with additional questions, Atteberry told CNN last month.

“We’re throwing a large net so that we capture everybody that that potentially could be getting exposed, and then we’re able to focus our attention on those individuals that are exposed, and then we get them treated,” Atteberry said last month.

On October 15, a dairy worker in the county tested positive for mild H5N1. It was the first human case reported in nearly a year.

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Not all states are approaching bird flu the same way. ProPublica recently reported that Utah’s Department of Agriculture and Food agreed to share information about bird flu outbreaks on farms as long as health officials didn’t take steps to track workers’ health.

This patchwork state-by-state approach to monitoring bird flu infections in people is concerning, said Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, who directs the Pandemic Center at Brown University’s School of Public Health.

“I just think that our our picture of H5N1 is the murkiest it’s ever been,” Nuzzo said.

Nuzzo said this bird flu uptick at dairies in Washington, which has coincided with the very early circulation of seasonal influenza on the Pacific Coast, sets the table for the H5N1 virus to swap pieces of its genome with seasonal flu viruses. A big change like that could potentially give the virus the tools it needs to better infect humans.

“That is the bad scenario. So when you have an uptick in bird flu activity corresponding with human flu season, that just increases my worry even more that we could have a mix that we don’t want to have,” she said.

Atteberry said farm workers who test positive are given antiviral medication with the goal of treating their symptoms as well as lowering their viral load to reduce the chance they could pass it to others.

“Even though we haven’t seen that biologically be possible yet,” Atteberry said. “We’re doing it out of an abundance of caution.”

华盛顿州雅基马县卫生官员周日表示，该县一名居民因接触受感染的奶牛而感染禽流感，后因病情严重死亡。

这是美国 2026 年已知的首例因禽流感并发症死亡的病例，也是自 2024 年 2 月该病毒首次感染奶牛以来，美国第三例因禽流感死亡的病例。

10月31日，雅基马县卫生区报告称，一名曾接触过感染禽流感牛只的人员因病情严重入院治疗。该人员患有基础疾病，但县卫生区并未具体说明。11月1日，该县报告称，该人员已死亡。雅基马县卫生官员表示，他们正在密切监测死者的密切接触者，以确保没有将病毒传染给其他人。

美国疾病控制与预防中心自2024年以来已记录到70多例禽流感病例。大多数患者都曾在饲养受感染牛或家禽的农场工作过。卫生官员表示，大多数病例症状轻微，且均为所谓的“死胡同感染”，即病毒从动物传播到人，但不会进一步扩散。

美国尚未发现禽流感人传人的病例。卫生官员表示，公众感染风险仍然很低。

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今年雅基马县卫生区已确诊三例病例：上个月确诊一例轻症病例，一例死亡病例，以及周末报告的第三例病例。

华盛顿州的三例病例均发生在10月中旬之后，均由接触受感染的牛只引起。县卫生区官员表示，第三例病例与第一例病例一样，症状轻微，无需住院治疗。

州卫生官员表示，他们已将这三例病例全部上报给美国疾病控制与预防中心（CDC）。目前，CDC尚未将这三例病例纳入其禽流感疫情数据看板。

自10月8日以来，华盛顿州已报告33个奶牛场感染H5N1禽流感病毒。该州敦促奶牛场工作人员佩戴个人防护装备，并报告任何不适症状。

雅基马卫生区的公共卫生官员戴夫·阿特伯里博士表示，华盛顿州农业部和美国农业部在 10 月初通过牛奶检测发现了奶牛感染的奶牛场。

随后，该县公共卫生工作人员联系了受影响的农场，并让奶农们注册了一个基于短信的健康筛查工具，该工具每天检查咳嗽、发烧或眼睛发红等症状。阿特伯里上个月告诉CNN，如果工人报告任何症状，卫生部门会跟进询问更多问题。

“我们正在撒下一张大网，以便抓住所有可能接触到病毒的人，然后我们就能集中精力关注那些已经接触过病毒的人，并对他们进行治疗，”阿特伯里上个月说。

10月15日，该县一名奶牛场工人被检测出感染了轻症H5N1禽流感病毒。这是近一年来报告的首例人类感染病例。

Julie Leopo 为 ProPublica 撰稿

禽流感正在一家水貂养殖场肆虐。专家表示，这可能引发人类大流行，但官员们却无动于衷。

并非所有州都以相同的方式应对禽流感。ProPublica 近期报道称，犹他州农业和食品部同意分享农场禽流感疫情信息，前提是卫生官员不采取措施追踪工人的健康状况。

布朗大学公共卫生学院大流行病中心主任詹妮弗·努佐博士表示，这种各州各自为政地监测禽流感感染情况的做法令人担忧。

“我认为我们对 H5N1 的了解比以往任何时候都更加模糊不清，”努佐说道。

努佐表示，华盛顿州奶牛场禽流感病例的激增，恰逢太平洋沿岸季节性流感病毒的早期传播，这为H5N1病毒与季节性流感病毒交换基因组片段创造了条件。这种重大改变可能会使病毒获得更好地感染人类所需的工具。

“那是最糟糕的情况。当禽流感活动与人类流感季节同时出现高峰时，我更加担心我们可能会面临两种流感混合爆发的局面，而这是我们不希望看到的，”她说。

阿特伯里表示，检测呈阳性的农场工人会接受抗病毒药物治疗，目的是治疗他们的症状并降低他们的病毒载量，以减少他们将病毒传染给他人的机会。

“尽管我们尚未发现生物学上的可能性，”阿特伯里说，“但我们这样做是出于高度谨慎。”