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Bird Flu Traces Found In One In Five US Milk Samples, No Risk To Humans, Says FDA

Many infectious disease experts and government officials have said they believe the pasteurization process will inactivate the virus, also known as avian influenza.
By
Ramananda Sengupta
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Washington: One in five commercial milk samples tested in a nationwide survey contained particles of the H5N1 virus, or bird flu, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said late on Thursday, suggesting the outbreak of bird flu is more widespread than previously thought.

The agency said there is no reason to believe the virus found in milk poses a risk to human health.

“This says this virus has largely saturated dairy cattle throughout the country,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota.

Many infectious disease experts and government officials have said they believe the pasteurization process will inactivate the virus, also known as avian influenza.

However, additional testing is needed to confirm that there is no infectious virus in the milk, the agency said. “To date, the retail milk studies have shown no results that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the FDA said in its latest update.

“I’m not worried about the milk itself. It does indicate that the virus is more widespread among dairies than we had previously thought,” said Samuel Alcaine, associate professor of food science at Cornell University.

“We had a little over 30 herds or farms that had been reported as having positive for avian influenza. We have just under 30,000 farms across the U.S. Thirty-three is a really small number. It makes it seem like there is definitely more spread out there,” he said.

Eight U.S. states have confirmed cases of bird flu in 33 dairy herds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Only one person – a Texas farm worker – has been confirmed to have bird flu in the current outbreak. The patient suffered conjunctivitis, an eye irritation that can cause redness and discomfort.

The FDA said the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not recorded additional human cases beyond the first confirmed case.

FDA is further assessing any positive findings through egg inoculation tests, which it described as a gold standard for determining viable virus.
(REUTERS)

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In a career spanning three decades and counting, Ramananda (Ram to his friends) has been the foreign editor of The Telegraph, Outlook Magazine and the New Indian Express. He helped set up rediff.com’s editorial operations in San Jose and New York, helmed sify.com, and was the founder editor of India.com.
His work has featured in national and international publications like the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, Global Times and Ashahi Shimbun. But his one constant over all these years, he says, has been the attempt to understand rising India’s place in the world.
He can rustle up a mean salad, his oil-less pepper chicken is to die for, and all it takes is some beer and rhythm and blues to rock his soul.
Talk to him about foreign and strategic affairs, media, South Asia, China, and of course India.

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