WASHINGTON — The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says it has ended its emergency response to H5N1 bird flu, citing a drop in cases.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a statement Mon., July 7 indicating that the reports of animal infections with avian influenza A(H5N1) virus have declined, and no human cases have been reported since Feb. 2025. HHS deactivated the CDC’s “emergency response” status on July 2, transitioning back to “regular program activity.”

Nevertheless, surveillance, readiness and response for influenza, including H5N1 bird flu, will continue via CDC’s influenza division and other agency programs as appropriate.

The CDC H5N1 emergency was originally declared April 4, 2024, just a few weeks after the B3.13 strain was found to be the culprit in a mystery illness affecting dairy cattle in the Southwest. That strain spread from cow to cow to other regions, hitting California dairies particularly hard over the winter and spring.

As of July 9th, the H5N1 dairy case map at the APHIS website shows California and previously affected states clear of the virus for more than 30 days. Just one case in the nation has been documented in the past 30 days, that one occurring in Arizona, and it represents the D1.1 strain that has not been shown to spread from cow to cow, nor create symptoms in cows, but instead was discovered through the National Milk Testing Strategy (NMTS) as a bird-to-cow case, identified via this national testing surveillance of raw milk at dairy processing plants.

In poultry, USDA APHIS and other departments continue to work to curb spread of the D1.1 strain from wild geese to domestic poultry.

In Pennsylvania, dairy farms within a 3-kilometer (roughly one and a half miles) radius of an infected poultry operation are notified by the State Vet’s office about stepped up biosecurity and milk testing requirements for the purpose of surveillance. For example, on July 1, a new poultry case was reported in a mixed game and duck flock in Little Britain Township, Lancaster County. The flock is currently under quarantine for this strain (D1.1) that is transmitted through wild geese in the Eastern Fly-Way Zones and is not the B3.13 strain that has infected dairy cattle in other states.

However, as part of the state’s response to poultry infections, any Pennsylvania dairy located within the 3-km radius