The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has ended its emergency response to the H5N1 avian flu.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said that the emergency bird flu response was “deactivated to transition back to regular program activity” last Wednesday due to reports of animal infections declining and no human cases having been reported since February.
“Surveillance, readiness, and response for influenza, including H5N1 bird flu cases, will continue under the purview of CDC’s Influenza Division and other appropriate agency programs,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement.
The agency’s H5N1 bird flu emergency response was activated in April of last year, and since then there have been 70 cases of H5N1 bird flu found in humans, CDC data shows.
There has not been any incident of human-to-human transmission. One person died of the disease earlier this year after being hospitalized with a severe form.
CDC officials said the person was a man in Louisiana who likely contracted the virus from a backyard flock.
The current risk of H5N1 bird flu is low but the CDC will continue to monitor the disease and “scale up activities as needed,” according to the spokesperson.
More than a dozen states have reported an H5N1 avian flu case, but the majority have been concentrated along the West Coast, particularly Washington and California.
