Doctors and researchers said the moves will make it harder to detect potentially dangerous changes. If the virus continues to jump between species or the human case count grows, there’s a greater risk that it could mutate and become more easily transmissible between people,

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ended its emergency response for bird flu as the outbreak that sickened dozens of people, spread to cattle and drove up egg prices has abated.

Since 2022, the virus has affected nearly 175 million birds, including commercial and wild birds.