{"id":122562,"date":"2026-02-25T00:14:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T00:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/122562\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T00:14:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T00:14:06","slug":"pa-officials-address-efforts-to-reduce-spread-of-bird-flu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/122562\/","title":{"rendered":"PA officials address efforts to reduce spread of bird flu"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Pennsylvania officials addressed growing concerns about avian flu, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported over 7 million birds have been infected with the highly contagious virus in the state in the past 30 days.\n<\/p>\n

The surge in avian influenza<\/a> has gripped the nation since being detected in a flock in February 2022. Since then, more than 195 million birds have been affected, according to the USDA<\/a>. In Pennsylvania alone, roughly 7.4 million birds in 13 commercial flocks have been infected in the past month.\n<\/p>\n

During a press conference Tuesday at the Lancaster County Rapid Response Center, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said additional personnel and expanded testing<\/a> is being sent out to reduce the risk of spread and deaths within Pennsylvania\u2019s $7.1 billion poultry industry.\n <\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it spreads from here somewhere else or from somewhere else here, that\u2019s why we take this so seriously,\u201d Shapiro said. \u201cWe\u2019ve thrown everything we have at it, from resources to time. We\u2019re coordinating at a state, local and federal level. We want to do everything we can to kind of shorten the lifespan of this virus.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Shapiro discussed coordination between state and federal officials, including a recent meeting with USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins<\/a> at the White House last Friday. He said the USDA has helped by providing 42 employees to assist 55 state personnel, including veterinarians.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they also understand the importance of figuring out how to get a vaccine out there \u2026 perhaps as a pilot over the course of the next few months,\u201d Shapiro said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of complicating factors at the federal level, including trade, and I say this not to be critical in any way of our federal partners, but they\u2019ve got to work through those issues. That\u2019s why it\u2019s not a tomorrow thing. It\u2019s something that, as the secretary said, [could] likely take months.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13121,33,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-122562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-bird-flu","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}