From chickens to foxes, here's how bird flu is spreading across the US

A bird flu outbreak that has alarmed health officials by its pervasive spread across six continents, sickening birds, cows and other mammals, has claimed the life of a Louisiana resident, officials said Monday, Jan. 6.

The bird flu was first described in Italy in 1878 as a “fowl plague.”

This current outbreak, from a strain that emerged among poultry flocks and wild birds in Europe in the fall of 2020, has been the most pervasive in the U.S. and Europe. Once the highly contagious strain – H5N1 – was identified, it quickly began spreading across Europe and into Africa, the Middle East and Asia. By October 2022, it had been declared the largest avian flu epidemic ever in Europe.

As it spread around the world, tens of millions of chickens and turkeys were euthanized and thousands of birds have been killed or sickened, as well as land-based mammals and marine mammals.

Around the world, bird flu has killed about half of the people known to have been infected.

For now, the risk to people remains low, but the longer it lingers, researchers become more concerned about the possible mutations that could make it easier to transmit among humans and have a greater impact on human health.

Here are some of the key events in the transmission and spread of the virus.

Table of Contents

May – July 2021

Wild fox kits at a rehabilitation center in the Netherlands test positive for the virus during an outbreak in wild birds.
Virus found in great skuas – a type of seabird – on Fair Isle, Scotland.

November – December 2021

Four ducks harvested by hunters North and South Carolina test positive for the virus, the first bird flu infection among wild birds in the U.S. since 2016.

January – February 2022

An avian flu infection is reported in an 80-year-old man in England, with no symptoms who raised ducks that became sick in late December.
Poultry outbreaks occurring worldwide.
Virus detections begin occurring at other commercial poultry facilities in the U.S.

Diseases of chickens and other poultry are the focus of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Georgia. — Diseases of chickens and other poultry are the focus of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Georgia.

April – September 2022

U.S. reports first human case, possibly the result of contamination of the nasal passages rather than actual infection in a worker culling chickens on a Colorado farm.
Virus found in at least 88 mammals in the U.S. , including harbor seals, red foxes, skunks and a bottlenose dolphin. Similar detections occurring in Europe and Japan.

Fall 2022

2023

Bird flu spillover into mammals continues. Several human cases reported internationally.

By February, more than 50 million chickens have been affected in the U.S., in what has become one of the largest bird flu outbreaks in recorded history.

Endangered California condors are among the species that contracted the H5N1 bird flu. More than a dozen died before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service oversaw development of a vaccine that was successfully used to treat them.

March – April 2024

Virus found in unpasteurized clinical samples of milk at two Kansas dairy farms and one in Texas.

May 2024

Infection reported in another farm worker in the U.S., and this time the patient has respiratory symptoms, which healthcare researchers find more concerning. It’s the fourth reported human case, the third by exposure to dairy cows.

On the front lines of bird flu: Dead chickens, biohazard suits and shrugs

October 2024

Experts in California say the virus was rapidly taking hold in California’s Central Valley, home to the nation’s largest dairy production.

December 2024

Samples from the first severe human case of bird flu in the U.S., a case in the state of Louisiana, is showing signs of mutation, raising fears the virus could become more transmissible among humans, according to the CDC.

Cats were reportedly sickened have contracting bird flu following consumption of raw pet food, while other cat deaths were reported to the consumption of raw milk.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency to combat bird flu, which has spread to more than a quarter of all the state’s dairies.

January 2025

The Louisiana patient, a 65-year-old patient with underlying medical conditions, died after contracting bird flu from contact with a combination of a backyard flock and wild birds, the state’s Department of Public Health announced on Jan. 6.

(This story has been updated to include new information.)

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bird flu in the US: A full timeline

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