What we’re starting to learn about H5N1 in cows, and the risk to people

Published by: STAT
Published on: April 30, 2024
By Helen Branswell, Megan Molteni

The H5N1 bird flu virus has been around for decades, and the damage it wreaks on chickens and other poultry is well documented. But the recent discovery that the virus has jumped into dairy cattle — whose udders seem to be where the virus either infects or migrates to — has dumbfounded scientists and agricultural authorities.

Questions for which there are pretty clear answers when it comes to birds are suddenly unsettled science in cows. How are they getting infected? Are they transmitting the virus cow to cow, or are human actions — activities that are part of the day-to-day of farming — serving as an unrecognized amplifier of viral transmission? In the interface between infected cows and humans, how might people be at risk? Does consuming milk laced with live H5 virus pose a hazard?

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avian flu

There’s never a good time to drink raw milk. But now’s a really bad time as bird flu infects cows

Published April 29, 2024

Published by: STAT
Published on: April 29, 2024
By Helen Branswell

Scientists who know about the types of pathogens — E. coli and Salmonella among them — that can be transmitted in raw milk generally think drinking unpasteurized milk is a bad idea. But right now, they believe, the danger associated with raw milk may have gone to a whole new level.

“If I were in charge, for the moment I would forbid the selling of raw milk,” said Thijs Kuiken, a pathologist in the department of viroscience at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, who has done research on H5N1 and the damage it inflicts for about two decades.

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avian flu

H5N1 bird flu virus particles found in pasteurized milk but FDA says commercial milk supply appears safe

Published April 23, 2024

Published by: STAT
Published on: April 23, 2024
By Helen Branswell, Nicholas Florko, Megan Molteni, Rachel Cohrs Zhang

Testing conducted by the Food and Drug Administration on pasteurized commercially purchased milk has found genetic evidence of the H5N1 bird flu virus, the agency confirmed Tuesday. But the testing, done by polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, cannot distinguish between live virus or fragments of viruses that could have been killed by the pasteurization process.

The agency said it has been trying to see if it could grow virus from milk found to contain evidence of H5N1, which is the gold standard test to see if there is viable virus in a product. The lengthy statement the agency released does not explicitly say FDA laboratories were unable to find live virus in the milk samples, but it does state that its belief that commercial, pasteurized milk is safe to consume has not been altered by these findings.

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avian flu

Bird flu detected in cows in three more Michigan counties, agriculture department says

Published April 12, 2024

Published by: Michigan Public
Published on: April 12, 2024
By Zena Issa

The recent detection of highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, has been confirmed in three additional dairy herds in Michigan counties: Ionia, Isabella, and Ottawa, the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said Friday. That brought the total to four affected counties, with Montcalm County the first to detect the disease in a dairy herd about two weeks earlier.

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Tag: pasteurization