type: timeline_event
On July 2, 2025, the CDC's H5N1 emergency bird flu response was deactivated to transition back to regular program activity, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The decision was made because reports of animal infections with avian influenza A(H5N1) virus had declined and no human cases had been reported since February 2025, despite the virus having infected over 1,000 dairy herds across 17 states and caused 70 human infections with one death.
The CDC H5N1 emergency had been declared on April 4, 2024, and allowed for additional support to the public health response, including enhanced staffing and resources. The deactivation meant that surveillance, readiness, and response for influenza—including H5N1 bird flu—would continue under the CDC's influenza division and other regular agency programs, but without the elevated priority, coordination, and resources that emergency status provided.
Dr. Nirav Shah, who had resigned from his position as CDC principal deputy director, stated he would have also chosen to end the emergency response, claiming "this was not something that was imposed from the top down. It was initiated by the career scientists at CDC." However, this assertion was difficult to reconcile with the broader context of mass firings, budget cuts, and political interference that had characterized HHS under Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s leadership.
The HHS spokesperson stated that "the current public health risk from H5N1 bird flu is low, however, CDC will continue to monitor the situation and scale up activities as needed." On July 7, 2025, CDC streamlined H5 bird flu updates with routine influenza data updates and updated reporting cadences to reflect the current public health situation, further reducing the visibility and priority of H5N1 surveillance.
The deactivation of the emergency response occurred in a broader context of systematic dismantling of public health infrastructure under Kennedy's HHS leadership. A spokesperson for HHS told HuffPost that the deactivation came after Kennedy had faced "months of criticism over how he has wielded his authority, including ordering changes to COVID-19 vaccine guidance, terminating bird flu vaccine research funding, forcing out federal vaccines officials and spreading myths about measles shots."
The decision to end emergency response status for H5N1 represented a dangerous normalization of an ongoing pandemic threat. While it was technically true that human cases had declined since February 2025, the virus remained endemic in over 1,000 dairy herds, had infected more than 173 million poultry, and had demonstrated the capacity to cause severe illness and death in humans. The deactivation came just 23 days after Kennedy had fired all 17 members of the CDC's vaccine advisory committee and less than six weeks after canceling pandemic flu vaccine contracts.
The timing and context of the emergency deactivation suggested it was part of Kennedy's systematic effort to downplay infectious disease threats and dismantle pandemic preparedness infrastructure rather than a good-faith assessment of the public health situation. By ending emergency status while the virus remained endemic in American agriculture, the CDC reduced its capacity to rapidly detect and respond to any resurgence or concerning mutations in the virus, leaving the nation vulnerable to a potential pandemic influenza outbreak in the name of returning to "regular program activity" under an HHS Secretary whose ideological opposition to vaccines and public health measures was well documented.