Category: Flu Virus

Health

By Amy Eisinger

Published April 19, 2024, 11:31 a.m. ET

A recent statement from the World Health Organization is sure to ruffle a few feathers.

The international health group expressed great concern over the rising number of bird flu cases in humans. The organization also announced Friday that the virus has been found in raw milk.

Dr. Jeremy Farrar, chief scientist at the WHO, noted that the avian flu, also called H5N1, had an extremely high mortality rate among those who had been infected around the world.

The illness remains extremely rare in the US, with just two known cases, one that occurred earlier this month and one that occurred in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In both of those cases, the infected individuals worked in close proximity to livestock.

No human-to-human transmissions of the disease have occurred.

The great concern, of course, is that [the] virus now evolves and develops the ability to infect humans. And then critically, the ability to go from human-to-human transmission, Farrar warned.

On Friday, the WHO further warned that the virus has been found in raw milk. Officials said that drinking pasteurized milk which is the kind sold throughout the US in grocery stores is still safe. Dairy farmers in the US are also required to destroy milk from infected cows, so it should not make its way into the food supply chain in the first place.

Dr. Wenqing Zhang, who leads the WHOs global flu program, said that the virus had been identified in a very high virus concentration in raw milk from infected cows, according to the Daily Mail. Researchers are still trying to determine how long the virus might be able to survive in milk.

In general, drinking raw milk is always a bad idea, as raw milk can carry other contaminants, like salmonella, listeria and E. coli all of which can make you sick.

Zhang also reiterated the cases that have been identified in the US and in Europe have been relatively mild.

There are two types of avian flu tracked by the CDC low pathogenic and highly pathogenic. The latter, as you can probably guess, is more serious because it has a higher mortality rate in poultry, 90% 100% and often within 48 hours. The person in Texas who contracted the illness earlier this month has the highly pathogenic form of the virus.

Since January 2022, the CDC notes that over 90 million birds have been infected in 48 states. But the current outbreak isnt just affecting birds, its affecting cattle as well. Currently, eight states have avian flu cattle outbreaks.

The WHO urged US officials to monitor the situation closely because the virus could evolve into transmitting in different ways.

Do the milking structures of cows create aerosols? Is it the environment which theyre living in? Is it the transport system that is spreading this around the country? Farrar questioned. This is a huge concern and I think we have to make sure that if H5N1 did come across to humans with human-to-human transmission, that we were in a position to immediately respond with access equitably to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

This is hardly the first warning of a potential bird flu pandemic.

Earlier this month, scientists sounded the alarm that such a pandemic could be 100 times worse than COVID.

This virus [has been] on the top of the pandemic list for many, many years and probably decades, said Dr. Suresh Kuchipudi, a bird flu researcher from Pittsburgh, according to the Daily Mail.

The only hope, officials went on, is that the virus would be less deadly in humans than it is in birds.

Once its mutated to infect humans, we can only hope that the [fatality rate] drops, said John Fulton, a pharmaceutical industry consultant for vaccines, according to the Mail.

Between 2003 and 2019, 861 cases of the avian flu were identified globally and 455 people have died, meaning that the fatality rate is nearly 53%, according to the CDC.

If a pandemic were to occur, the Food and Drug Administration has a few vaccines for humans on hand, Forbes reported. Currently, theres not enough to protect all Americans, and the CDC has previously stated that it would take months and be a multi-step process to create enough in the event of a pandemic.

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Bird flu virus now found in milk, is of great concern to WHO - New York Post

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The H5N1 bird flu virus strain has been detected in very high concentrations in raw milk from infected animals, the WHO said Friday, though how long the virus can survive in milk is unknown.

Avian influenza A(H5N1) first emerged in 1996 but since 2020, the number of outbreaks in birds has grown exponentially, alongside an increase in the number of infected mammals.

The strain has led to the deaths of tens of millions of poultry, with wild birds and land and marine mammals also infected.

Cows and goats joined the list last montha surprising development for experts because they were not thought to be susceptible to this type of influenza.

US authorities earlier this month said a person working on a dairy farm in Texas was recovering from bird flu after being exposed to cattle.

"The case in Texas is the first case of a human infected by avian influenza by a cow," said Wenqing Zhang, head of the global influenza program at the World Health Organization.

"Bird-to-cow, cow-to-cow and cow-to-bird transmission have also been registered during these current outbreaks, which suggest that the virus may have found other routes of transition than we previously understood," she told a media briefing in Geneva.

It was only the second case of a human testing positive for bird flu in the United States, and came after the virus sickened herds that were apparently exposed to wild birds.

"Now we see multiple herds of cows affected in an increasing number of US states, which shows a further step of the virus spillover to mammals," Zhang said.

"The virus has also been detected in milk from infected animals."

Zhang said there was a "very high virus concentration in raw milk", but experts were still investigating exactly how long the virus is able to survive in milk.

The Texas health department has said the cattle infections do not present a concern for the commercial milk supply, as dairies are required to destroy milk from sick cows. Pasteurization also kills the virus.

"It is important for people to ensure safe food practices, including consuming only pasteurized milk and milk products," said Zhang.

From 2003 to April 1 this year, the WHO said it had recorded 463 deaths from 889 human cases across 23 countries, putting the case fatality rate at 52 percent.

Zhang noted that the human cases recorded in Europe and the United States in the past few yearssince the virus surgedhave been mild cases.

So far, there is no evidence that A(H5N1) is spreading between humans.

And Zhang stressed that the A(H5N1) viruses identified in cows and in the human case in Texas showed no increased adaptation to mammals.

As for potential vaccines, if required, Zhang said there were some in the pipeline.

"Having candidate vaccine viruses ready allows us to be prepared to quickly produce vaccines for humans, if this becomes necessary," she said.

"For this particular H5N1 virus detected in dairy cows, there are a couple of candidate vaccine viruses available."

In the case of a pandemic, there are close to 20 influenza vaccines licensed for pandemic use and they could be tailored with the specific virus strain in circulation, she said.

Originally posted here:

H5N1 strain of bird flu found in milk: WHO - Phys.org

In the month since federal authorities announced an outbreak of bird flu on dairy farms, they have repeatedly reassured the public that the spate of infections does not impact the nations food or milk supply, and poses little risk to the public.

Yet the outbreak among cows may be more serious than originally believed. In an obscure online update this week, the Department of Agriculture said there is now evidence that the virus is spreading among cows, and from cows to poultry.

Officials in North Carolina have detected bird flu infections in a cattle herd with no symptoms, The New York Times has learned information the U.S.D.A. has not shared publicly. The finding suggests that the infections may be more widespread than thought.

Whether there are asymptomatic animals elsewhere remains unclear, because the U.S.D.A. is not requiring farms to test cattle for infection. It has been reimbursing farmers for testing, but only for 20 cows per farm that were visibly ill. This week, the department said it would begin reimbursing farms for testing cows without symptoms.

Federal officials have shared limited genetic information about the virus with scientists and with officials in other countries, which is important for learning how the virus might be evolving as it spreads.

They are not actively monitoring infections in pigs, which are famously effective hosts for evolving flu viruses, and which are often kept in proximity to cattle. And officials have said they have no concern about the safety of milk, despite a lack of hard data.

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Scientists Fault Federal Response to Bird Flu Outbreaks on Dairy Farms - The New York Times

Epidemics

Influenza is still the biggest threat to global health as WHO raises fears about the spread of avian strain

Sat 20 Apr 2024 04.52 EDT

Influenza is the pathogen most likely to trigger a new pandemic in the near future, according to leading scientists.

An international survey, to be published next weekend, will reveal that 57% of senior disease experts now think that a strain of flu virus will be the cause of the next global outbreak of deadly infectious illness.

The belief that influenza is the worlds greatest pandemic threat is based on long-term research showing it is constantly evolving and mutating, said Cologne Universitys Jon Salmanton-Garca, who carried out the study.

Each winter influenza appears, he said. You could describe these outbreaks as little pandemics. They are more or less controlled because the different strains that cause them are not virulent enough but that will not necessarily be the case for ever.

Details of the survey which involved inputs from a total of 187 senior scientists will be revealed at European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID) congress in Barcelona next weekend.

The next most likely cause of a pandemic, after influenza, is likely to be a virus dubbed Disease X that is still unknown to science, according to 21% of the experts who took part in the study. They believe the next pandemic will be caused by an as-yet-to-be-identified micro-organism that will appear out of the blue, just as the Sars-CoV-2 virus, the cause of Covid-19, did, when it started to infect humans in 2019.

Indeed, some scientists still believe Sars-CoV-2 remains a threat, with 15% of the scientists surveyed in the study rating it their most likely cause of a pandemic in the near future.

Other deadly micro-organisms such as Lassa, Nipah, Ebola and Zika viruses were rated as serious global threats by only 1% to 2% of respondents. Influenza remained by a very large degree, the number one threat in terms of its pandemic potential in the eyes of a large majority of world scientists, added Salmanton-Garca.

Last week, the World Health Organization raised fears about the alarming spread of the H5N1 strain of influenza that is causing millions of cases of avian flu across the globe. This outbreak began in 2020 and has led to the deaths or killing of tens of millions of poultry and has also wiped out millions of wild birds.

Most recently, the virus has spread to mammal species, including domestic cattle which are now infected in 12 states in the US, further increasing fears about the risks to humans. The more mammalian species the virus infects, the more opportunities it has to evolve into a strain that is dangerous to humans, Daniel Goldhill, of the Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield, told the journal Nature last week.

The appearance of the H5N1 virus in cattle was a surprise, added virologist Ed Hutchinson, of Glasgow University. Pigs can get avian flu but until recently cattle did not. They were infected with their own strains of the disease. So the appearance of H5N1 in cows was a shock.

It means that the risks of the virus getting into more and more farm animals, and then from farm animals into humans just gets higher and higher. The more the virus spreads, then the chances of it mutating so it can spread into humans goes up and up. Basically, we are rolling the dice with this virus.

To date, there has been no indication that H5N1 is spreading between humans. But in hundreds of cases where humans have been infected through contact with animals over the past 20 years, the impact has been grim. The mortality rate is extraordinarily high because humans have no natural immunity to the virus, said Jeremy Farrar, chief scientist of the World Health Organization.

The prospect of a flu pandemic is alarming, although scientists also point out that vaccines against many strains, including H5N1, have already been developed. If there was an avian flu pandemic it would still be a massive logistical challenge to produce vaccines at the scale and speed that will be needed. However, we would be much further down that road than we were with Covid-19 when a vaccine had to be developed from scratch, said Hutchinson.

Nevertheless, some lessons of preventing disease spread have been forgotten since the end of the Covid pandemic, said Salmanton-Garca. People have gone back to coughing into their hands and then shaking hands with other people. Mask-wearing has disappeared. We are going back to our old bad habits. We may come to regret that.

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Next pandemic likely to be caused by flu virus, scientists warn - The Guardian

From flu to coronavirus to the ominously-named 'Disease X', epidemiologists around the world have ranked what they believe will be the most likely cause of the next global pandemic after Covid-19

Medical experts have revealed that the flu is the most likely cause of the next global pandemic, according to a new study.

The majority of infectious disease experts from around the world have ranked influenza as the top pathogen of concern in terms of its potential to spark a pandemic. Second on the list was an illness ominously dubbed 'Disease X', while others highlighted as potential causes included Coronavirus, Ebola, the original SARS virus from the early 2000s and Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF).

The study, set to be formally presented at the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases' (ESCMID) Global Congress in Barcelona later this month, surveyed 187 global infectious disease experts from 57 different countries. Each expert was asked to rank various pathogens based on their perceived pandemic risk, including diseases featured in the World Health Organisation's Research and Development Blueprint for Action to Prevent Epidemics.

The experts ranked the pathogens in order of their perceived risk and also suggested additional pathogens not listed to include in their maximum of 14. Their responses revealed that influenza viruses were the top concern, with more than half (57%) ranking it first and around a sixth (17%) ranking it second. Over a fifth (21%) of the experts ranked the as-yet-unknown Disease X as having the highest pandemic potential, with another 14% ranking it second.

Coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2, came third with nearly one in ten (8%) ranking it first and 16% ranking it second, while the original SARS-CoV virus that circulated in 2002-03 was voted number one by two per cent of respondents and second by eight per cent. The CCHF and Ebola viruses were joint fifth, with 1.6% of experts voting them first. Nipah virus, henipavirus, and Rift Valley fever virus were among the pathogens ranked lowest in terms of their perceived pandemic potential.

Dr Jon Salmanton-Garcia, the lead author of the study from the University of Cologne in Germany, explained: "The study revealed that influenza, Disease X, SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV, and the Ebola virus are the most worrisome pathogens concerning their pandemic potential. These pathogens are characterised by their transmissibility through respiratory droplets and a history of previous epidemic or pandemic outbreaks."

On influenza receiving the top ranking, Dr Salmanton-Garcia said the flu already causes 'mini pandemics' across the world each winter. "Each winter we have an influenza season," he said. "Yet, every season the strains involved change, that is the reason why we can get influenza several times in life and vaccines change year to year."

"In case a new strain becomes more virulent, this control could be lost." However, Dr Salmanton-Garcia added that the world is now much more prepared for a global pandemic after Covid. In the Covid-19 pandemic, we have learned many things on how to approach a respiratory virus pandemic," he continued. "This includes social distancing, hand cleaning, face masks, a renewed focus on vaccination, and trust in healthcare institutions. In parallel, institutions have also learnt a lot. Preparedness and surveillance are now, vitally, better-funded." The study was published in the journal Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease.

Continued here:

Next global pandemic 'most likely to be sparked by one illness' say scientists - The Mirror

FILE PHOTO: Brown eggs are shown in their carton in a home in Palm Springs, California, Aug. 17, 2015. Photo by Sam Mircovich/Reuters

A bird flu outbreak in U.S. dairy cows has grown to affect more than two dozen herds in eight states, just weeks after the nation's largest egg producer found the virus in its chickens.

Health officials stress that the risk to the public is low and that the U.S. food supply remains safe and stable.

READ MORE: Largest U.S. fresh egg producer detects bird flu in chickens, halts production

"At this time, there continues to be no concern that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health, or that it affects the safety of the interstate commercial milk supply," the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a statement.

Here's what you need to know about bird flu and food:

As of Friday, the strain of bird flu that has killed millions of wild birds in recent years has been found in at least 26 dairy herds in eight U.S. states: Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and South Dakota.

The virus, known as Type A H5N1, has been detected in a range of mammals over the last few years, but this is the first time it has been found in cattle, according to federal health and animal agencies. Genetic analysis of the virus does not show that it has changed to spread more easily in people, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Agriculture officials in at least 17 states have restricted imports of dairy cattle from states where the virus has been detected, but, so far, government agencies say it's had little effect on commercial milk production. Officials believe cows likely have been infected by exposure to wild birds, but said cow-to-cow spread "cannot be ruled out."

READ MORE: Texas patient diagnosed with bird flu after contact with cows presumed to be infected

Farmers are testing cows that show symptoms of infection, including sharply reduced milk supply and lethargy. Animals that show signs or test positive for illness are being separated from other animals on the farms. The animals appear to recover within two weeks.

U.S. egg producers are watching the situation closely after bird flu was detected in chickens in Texas and Michigan. Millions of birds have been killed, but the FDA said the risk of affected eggs getting into the retail market or causing infections in humans is low because of federal inspections and other safeguards.

Scientists say there's no evidence to suggest that people can contract the virus by consuming food that's been pasteurized, or heat-treated or properly cooked.

"It's not a food safety concern," said Lee-Ann Jaykus, an emeritus food microbiologist and virologist at North Carolina State University.

Two people in U.S. have been infected with bird flu to date. A Texas dairy worker who was in close contact with an infected cow recently developed a mild eye infection and has recovered. In 2022, a prison inmate in a work program caught it while killing infected birds at a Colorado poultry farm. His only symptom was fatigue, and he recovered.

Yes, according to food safety experts and government officials.

U.S. producers are barred from selling milk from sick cows and must divert and destroy it. In addition, milk sold across state lines is required to be pasteurized, or heat-treated using a process that kills bacteria and viruses, including influenza.

READ MORE: Dairy cows in Texas, Kansas test positive for avian flu

"We firmly believe that pasteurization provides a safe milk supply," Tracey Forfa, director of the FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine told a webinar audience this week.

The FDA and the CDC are less certain about unpasteurized, or raw, milk sold in many states, saying there's limited information about the possible transmission of the H5N1 virus in such products.

So far, no herds linked to raw milk providers have reported cows infected with bird flu, but the agencies recommend that the industry not make or sell raw milk or raw milk cheese products made with milk from cows that show symptoms or are exposed to infected cows.

U.S. health officials have long warned against the risk of foodborne illness tied to raw milk, which the CDC said caused more than 200 outbreaks that sickened more than 2,600 people between 1998 and 2018.

Still, raw milk proponents like Mark McAfee, owner of Raw Farm USA in Fresno, Calif., said the outbreak of H5N1 in commercial cows appears to have spurred higher sales of the products, despite federal warnings.

Only dairy cows, not beef cattle, have been infected or shown signs of illness to date, agriculture officials said.

The largest egg producer in the U.S. temporarily halted operations on April 2 after finding bird flu in its chickens. Cal-Maine Foods culled about 1.6 million laying hens and another 337,000 pullets, or young hens, after the detection.

The company said there was no risk to eggs in the market and that no eggs had been recalled.

Eggs that are handled properly and cooked thoroughly are safe to eat, said Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the Center for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University.

"A lot of people like runny eggs. Personally, if I eat an egg, it's very well cooked," she said.

Still, Kowalcyk and others cautioned that the situation could change.

"This is an emerging issue and clearly this pathogen is evolving and there's a lot that we don't know," she said. "I do think that everybody is trying to figure it out as quickly as possible."

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Bird flu has spread to more farm animals. Heres what to know about food safety - PBS NewsHour

In her three decades of working with elephant seals, Dr. Marcela Uhart had never seen anything like the scene on the beaches of Argentinas Valds Peninsula last October.

It was peak breeding season; the beach should have been teeming with harems of fertile females and enormous males battling one another for dominance. Instead, it was just carcass upon carcass upon carcass, recalled Dr. Uhart, who directs the Latin American wildlife health program at the University of California, Davis.

H5N1, one of the many viruses that cause bird flu, had already killed at least 24,000 South American sea lions along the continents coasts in less than a year. Now it had come for elephant seals.

Pups of all ages, from newborns to the fully weaned, lay dead or dying at the high-tide line. Sick pups lay listless, foam oozing from their mouths and noses.

Dr. Uhart called it an image from hell.

In the weeks that followed, she and a colleague protected head to toe with gloves, gowns and masks, and periodically dousing themselves with bleach carefully documented the devastation. Team members stood atop the nearby cliffs, assessing the toll with drones.

What they found was staggering: The virus had killed an estimated 17,400 seal pups, more than 95 percent of the colonys young animals.

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Bird Flu Is Infecting More Mammals. What Does That Mean for Us? - The New York Times

in the month after H5N1, bird flu spread to more humans, especially dairy cow herds, more experts in the United States are focusing more attention on the issue.

It was unexpected news last month that cows from a milking herd in Texas had tested positive for H5N1, but apparently, pasteurization of milk kills this specific virus.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) is expressing great concern over the increase in bird flu cases in humans, Michigan health officials are warning against raw milk, and a prominent journalist is demanding more information from USDA.

These are among the reactions that have occurred since about April 1, when a second human bird flu illness was reported in the United States.

WHO has great concern that the bird flu virus might evolve and develop an ability to infect humans.

Michigan put raw or unpasteurized milk on the foods most susceptible to the bird flu virus.

Journalist Helen Branswell, writing for STAT, raises a lot of food safety implications from bird flu, including milk, raw milk, and possible spread from chickens to cattle and even people and/or pigs.

She reports an inevitable failure in either transparency or fast-response research.

USDA claims that since the bird flu outbreak began in early 2022, the department has been practicing timely and transparent release of information.

Outside USDA, researchers are demanding the government gather samples on an ongoing basis to check for dangerous changes in the virus, but only a few genetic sequences from this outbreak have been uploaded to GISAID, the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data,

Previously, it was known as the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data, a global science initiative established in 2008 to provide access to GISAID, an international database widely used by scientists.

Genetic sequences are shared from early in the outbreak, which prevents outside scientists from monitoring if the virus has changed as it has moved from cow to cow or herd to herd.

USDA said it has offered outside scientists copies of a sample virus for research purposes. The department offers that USDA is analyzing other virus outbreaks, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sequences will be shared in the coming days.

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News,click here)

Here is the original post:

More want to know about why bird flu is spreading to humans and others - Food Safety News

The H5N1 bird flu virus strain has been detected in very high concentrations in raw milk from infected animals, the WHO said Friday, though how long the virus can survive in milk is unknown.

Avian influenza A(H5N1) first emerged in 1996 but since 2020, the number of outbreaks in birds has grown exponentially, alongside an increase in the number of infected mammals.

The strain has led to the deaths of tens of millions of poultry, with wild birds and land and marine mammals also infected.

Cows and goats joined the list last month -- a surprising development for experts because they were not thought to be susceptible to this type of influenza.

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US authorities earlier this month said a person working on a dairy farm in Texas was recovering from bird flu after being exposed to cattle.

"The case in Texas is the first case of a human infected by avian influenza by a cow," said Wenqing Zhang, head of the global influenza programme at the World Health Organization.

"Bird-to-cow, cow-to-cow and cow-to-bird transmission have also been registered during these current outbreaks, which suggest that the virus may have found other routes of transition than we previously understood," she told a media briefing in Geneva.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

It was only the second case of a human testing positive for bird flu in the United States, and came after the virus sickened herds that were apparently exposed to wild birds.

"Now we see multiple herds of cows affected in an increasing number of US states, which shows a further step of the virus spillover to mammals," Zhang said.

"The virus has also been detected in milk from infected animals."

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

Zhang said there was a "very high virus concentration in raw milk", but experts were still investigating exactly how long the virus is able to survive in milk.

The Texas health department has said the cattle infections do not present a concern for the commercial milk supply, as dairies are required to destroy milk from sick cows. Pasteurisation also kills the virus.

"It is important for people to ensure safe food practices, including consuming only pasteurised milk and milk products," said Zhang.

Advertisement - Scroll to Continue

From 2003 to April 1 this year, the WHO said it had recorded 463 deaths from 889 human cases across 23 countries, putting the case fatality rate at 52 percent.

Zhang noted that the human cases recorded in Europe and the United States in the past few years -- since the virus surged -- have been mild cases.

So far, there is no evidence that A(H5N1) is spreading between humans.

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And Zhang stressed that the A(H5N1) viruses identified in cows and in the human case in Texas showed no increased adaptation to mammals.

As for potential vaccines, if required, Zhang said there were some in the pipeline.

"Having candidate vaccine viruses ready allows us to be prepared to quickly produce vaccines for humans, if this becomes necessary," she said.

"For this particular H5N1 virus detected in dairy cows, there are a couple of candidate vaccine viruses available."

In the case of a pandemic, there are close to 20 influenza vaccines licensed for pandemic use and they could be tailored with the specific virus strain in circulation, she said.

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H5N1 Strain Of Bird Flu Found In Milk: WHO - Barron's

Agriculture officials in at least 17 states have restricted imports of dairy cattle from states where the virus has been detected, but, so far, government agencies say it's had little effect on commercial milk production. Reuters

Bird flu is becoming a growing concern, particularly in the United States.

Earlier this month, a dairy worker in Texas tested positive for bird flu, also known as H5N1. Now the World Health Organization (WHO) has raised concerns about the spread of bird flu, which has an extraordinarily high mortality rate in humans.

An outbreak that began in 2020 led to the deaths or killings of millions of poultry. Recently, the spread of the virus within several mammal species, including in domestic cattle in the US, has increased the risk of spillover to humans, according to the WHO.

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The outbreak has affected more than two dozen herds of US dairy cows across eight states. This comes shortly after the virus was detected in chickens from the nations largest egg producer.

The H5N1 bird flu virus strain has also been detected in very high concentrations in raw milk from infected animals, the WHO said on Friday. However, it is unknown how long the virus can survive in milk.

Although health officials are on high alert, experts believe that the US food supply remains safe and stable and the current risk to the public is low. At this time, there continues to be no concern that this circumstance poses a risk to consumer health, or that it affects the safety of the interstate commercial milk supply, the US Food and Drug Administration said.

So, how safe are your foods? Will bird flu spread to other farm animals? We explain.

Which US states have detected bird flu in dairy cows?

As of Friday (19 April), the strain of bird flu that has killed millions of wild birds in recent years has been found in at least 26 dairy herds in eight US states: Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and South Dakota.

The virus, known as Type A H5N1, has been detected in a range of mammals over the last few years, but this is the first time it has been found in cattle, according to federal health and animal agencies. Genetic analysis of the virus does not show that it has changed to spread more easily in people, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

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How does bird flu affect food production?

Agriculture officials in at least 17 states have restricted imports of dairy cattle from states where the virus has been detected, but, so far, government agencies say its had little effect on commercial milk production. Officials believe cows likely have been infected by exposure to wild birds, but said cow-to-cow spread cannot be ruled out.

Farmers are testing cows that show symptoms of infection, including sharply reduced milk supply and lethargy. Animals that show signs or test positive for illness are being separated from other animals on the farms. The animals appear to recover within two weeks.

Advertisement

US egg producers are watching the situation closely after bird flu was detected in chickens in Texas and Michigan. Millions of birds have been killed, but the FDA said the risk of affected eggs getting into the retail market or causing infections in humans is low because of federal inspections and other safeguards.

Is pasteurisation effective in killing bird flu?

Scientists say theres no evidence to suggest that people can contract the virus by consuming food thats been pasteurised, heat-treated or properly cooked.

Its not a food safety concern, said Lee-Ann Jaykus, an emeritus food microbiologist and virologist at North Carolina State University.

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Two people in the US have been infected with bird flu to date. A Texas dairy worker in close contact with an infected cow recently developed a mild eye infection and has recovered. In 2022, a prison inmate in a work programme caught it while killing infected birds at a Colorado poultry farm. His only symptom was fatigue, and he recovered.

Is grocery store milk safe from the bird flu?

Yes, according to food safety experts and government officials.

US producers are barred from selling milk from sick cows and must divert and destroy it. In addition, milk sold across state lines is required to be pasteurised, or heat-treated using a process that kills bacteria and viruses, including influenza.

Advertisement

We firmly believe that pasteurisation provides a safe milk supply, Tracey Forfa, director of the FDAs Centre for Veterinary Medicine told a webinar audience this week.

Is raw milk safe from bird flu?

The FDA and the CDC are less certain about unpasteurised, or raw, milk sold in many states, saying theres limited information about the possible transmission of the H5N1 virus in such products.

So far, no herds linked to raw milk providers have reported cows infected with bird flu, but the agencies recommend that the industry not make or sell raw milk or raw milk cheese products made with milk from cows that show symptoms or are exposed to infected cows.

US health officials have long warned against the risk of foodborne illness tied to raw milk, which the CDC said caused more than 200 outbreaks that sickened more than 2,600 people between 1998 and 2018.

Still, raw milk proponents like Mark McAfee, owner of Raw Farm USA in Fresno, California, said the outbreak of H5N1 in commercial cows appears to have spurred higher sales of the products, despite federal warnings.

Can you catch bird flu from eggs or meat?

Only dairy cows, not beef cattle, have been infected or shown signs of illness to date, agriculture officials said.

The largest egg producer in the US temporarily halted operations on 2 April after finding bird flu in its chickens. Cal-Maine Foods culled about 1.6 million laying hens and another 337,000 pullets, or young hens, after the detection.

The company said there was no risk to eggs in the market and that no eggs had been recalled.

Eggs that are handled properly and cooked thoroughly are safe to eat, said Barbara Kowalcyk, director of the Centre for Food Safety and Nutrition Security at George Washington University.

A lot of people like runny eggs. Personally, if I eat an egg, its very well cooked, she said.

Still, Kowalcyk and others cautioned that the situation could change.

This is an emerging issue and clearly this pathogen is evolving and theres a lot that we dont know, she said. I do think that everybody is trying to figure it out as quickly as possible.

With inputs from AP

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Bird flu outbreak in the US: Should you eat eggs, meat? Is milk safe? - Firstpost