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 presumptive case of H5N1 bird flu has been identified in a child who resides in San Francisco, health officials announced on Friday.

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.

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.

Bird flu is increasingly sparking concern across the country and in Illinois, following news this week of the first human death from the virus in the U.S., and of birds found throughout Illinois with suspected cases of the illness.

In the wake of the death of an Oregon house cat from avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, experts are urging caution with what you feed your pets. Why it matters: The Washington County cat died last month after eating frozen raw cat food made from infected turkey,

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).