BATON ROUGE - The Louisiana Department of Health announced a new interim secretary after the current secretary retired.

Michael Harrington, who had been the active head since June 2024 after being undersecretary, intended to work for the department on a temporary basis and initially indicated he wanted to retire this year, according to a release from LDH.

Drew Maranto, the previous undersecretary, is the new interim secretary and Governor Jeff Landry plans to promote a new secretary within the next few weeks. Maranto joined the department in January 2024 as chief of staff before being promoted to undersecretary in June 2024.