Pennsylvania Secretary of Agriculture Russell Redding announced Feb. 12 that Pennsylvania’s dairy industry has reached a critical “stage four” milestone granting HPAI-free status in the USDA’s National Milk Testing Strategy, making Pennsylvania the first major U.S. dairy-producing state to achieve this status. The designation indicates that Pennsylvania’s milk supply has been tested adequately to rule out the presence of the virus in the state’s dairy cattle. While Pennsylvania is the first major U.S. dairy-producing state to achieve this status, the department will continue testing of bulk milk, due to the lingering disease threats in other states.
Since Pennsylvania began to require testing of bulk milk samples in late November 2024, Pennsylvania Animal Diagnostic Laboratory System (PADLS) labs have tested more than 22,000 samples, representing nearly 100% of the state’s 4,784 dairy farms. In addition to initiating testing requirements and restrictions for transporting dairy cattle into Pennsylvania following the first detection of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) in dairy cattle in Texas in March 2024, Pennsylvania was also one of the first states to implement a voluntary program for testing lactating dairy cattle.
While the Commonwealth is currently dairy HPAI-free, the same unfortunately cannot be said of the state’s poultry industry. Since Jan. 27, Pennsylvania has experienced HPAI detections in birds in Lehigh, Dauphin, Cumberland, Lancaster and Lebanon Counties. In 2025 alone, in Pennsylvania domestic birds, there have been six affected commercial flocks, six affected backyard flocks, and 2,292,600 birds lost due to HPAI. In poultry, since February 2022 (the beginning of this outbreak of HPAI), 157.77 million birds have been lost from 1,554 flocks in every state and Puerto Rico. In that time, 37 commercial flocks, 44 backyard flocks, and 6,991,620 birds have been affected in Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania remains under a general quarantine to protect the poultry industry from the spread of the virus, and all poultry producers are encouraged to review their biosecurity plans and heighten their biosecurity practices. The national status of HPAI, state-by-state details, including Pennsylvania domestic poultry and backyard bird locations that have been confirmed to have HPAI in a USDA veterinary diagnostic lab, are listed on the USDA’s website.