- FDA and CDC insist that milk sold in supermarkets is still safe to drink
- Bird flu has killed millions of birds, seals and livestock since 2022
- READ MORE: Americans express concern about the arrival of BIRD FLU
Fragments of bird flu have been detected in milk in grocery stores, despite health officials insisting for weeks that this was not possible.
Government health officials still insist that traces of H5N1 are dormant and that the findings do not indicate that milk on grocery store shelves is unsafe.
But it marks another worrying development in the outbreak that is ravaging American dairy farms.
The Department of Agriculture, FDA and CDC said weeks ago that the virus could not infect commercial milk because of the pasteurization process, which involves heating the liquid to kill pathogens.
Government health officials insist that traces of bird flu in milk are inactive and that the findings do not indicate that milk on grocery store shelves is unsafe.
The bird flu virus has killed about 17,400 seal pups in a single colony in the United States. The virus’s ability to jump from birds to mammals has worried some virologists
The FDA said it believes the virus particles detected were lingering remnants of the pasteurization process that do not pose a threat.
The FDA said: ‘Pasteurization is a process that kills harmful bacteria and viruses by heating milk to a specific temperature for a set period of time to make the milk safer.
“Even if viruses are detected in raw milk, pasteurization is generally expected to eliminate pathogens to a level that does not pose a health risk to the consumer.”
The agency added: “To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe.”
It did not offer details, such as which brands of milk contained virus residue.
In addition to infecting birds, seals, cattle and cats, the bird flu virus also infected a farm worker in Texas.
The farmer’s H5N1 sample showed he had a mutation that was “known to be associated with viral adaptation to mammalian hosts,” but federal health agencies insisted the mutations were minor and the overall risk to the public was low. .
This mutation was not detected in cattle or wild birds, and officials said it may have been acquired through an eye infection.
Avian flu has taken over the animal world since 2020, leading to mass culling of poultry and other birds.
Infected migratory seabirds are believed to passed through Greenland and came to the US from Europe.
Others say the birds probably carried the virus when it crossed the Atlantic Ocean and landed in Newfoundland to breed.
The FDA’s announcement comes amid growing concern about outbreaks among dairy cows, which have resulted in restrictions on imports of cattle from states where bird flu has been detected.
Several states, including New York, have also issued warnings to residents to stay away from local wildlife such as geese, hawks and falcons, which can carry the deadly virus.
Meanwhile, states such as Iowa, California and Minnesota have begun testing their animals for the virus.
Infected cattle are described as “lethargic”, eating less food and producing less milk.
Cows can become infected through bird droppings in their pastures where animals congregate and graze.
So far, 28 farms in eight states have reported H5N1 infections in their cows, including 11 in Texas and six in New Mexico.