The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) revealed in a late Thursday announcement that one in five commercial milk samples tested in a nationwide survey contained traces of the H5N1 virus, indicating a potentially wider spread of the bird flu outbreak than previously understood.
Despite this finding, the FDA emphasized that there is no evidence to suggest any risk to human health from the virus detected in the milk samples. Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, noted that this discovery implies widespread contamination of dairy cattle across the country. While many experts believe that the standard pasteurization process should deactivate the virus, further testing is required to confirm the absence of any infectious virus in the milk.
The FDA’s latest update reiterated that retail milk studies have not revealed any results warranting a change in the assessment of the safety of the commercial milk supply. Samuel Alcaine, an associate professor of food science at Cornell University, echoed this sentiment, stating that while the presence of the virus in milk samples suggests wider contamination among dairies, there is no immediate cause for concern regarding the safety of milk consumption.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, bird flu cases have been confirmed in 33 dairy herds across eight states. However, the outbreak has only resulted in one human case so far, involving a farm worker from Texas who experienced conjunctivitis, an eye irritation characterized by redness and discomfort.
The FDA clarified that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not reported any additional human cases beyond the initial confirmed instance. Additionally, the FDA is conducting further assessments of positive findings through egg inoculation tests, considered the gold standard for determining the viability of the virus.
