A child in San Francisco who had red eyes and a fever had a probable case of H5N1 bird flu, according to the city’s Department of Public Health.

A variant of the virus caused disease in people in 1997, when there was a small but deadly outbreak in Hong Kong. Eighteen people had confirmed diagnoses, and six of them died. Since then, there have been sporadic cases around the world—but no large outbreaks.

For influenza viruses, imperfection is a strength. They constantly mutate, producing new strains that challenge immune systems primed to fight earlier varieties. That’s what makes flu a life-long threat to humans and the animal species — mainly birds — that are vulnerable to it.

With reports of the first human death from bird flu in the US, some Americans are feeling an uncomfortable flashback to the early days of Covid-19, when infectious disease experts were talking about a new virus that was sending people to the hospital with respiratory infections.

Medical experts advise that people should get a vaccine for the bird flu when it becomes commercially available. One doctor said the most at-risk patients should be first.

The experiment of whether H5 can ever be successful in human populations is happening before our eyes,” Seema Lakdawala, a flu virologist at Emory University, told me. “And we are doing nothing to stop it.

San Francisco health officials said Friday that a presumptive case of H5N1 bird flu had been identified in a San Francisco resident. The individual was a child, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH).

San Francisco public-health officials said Friday the bird-flu risk to the general public is low following the discovery of The City’s first presumptive case. The Department of Public Health announced the discovery days after U.

The bird flu virus circulating among cows, poultry and wild birds isn't yet a threat to the general public, but experts say if and when that will change is impossible to predict — and that if things do get bad,