Bird flu virus detected in California raw milk
State health officials said Sunday that bird flu virus was detected in a retail sample of raw milk from the Fresno-based Raw Farm dairy.
The sample was collected by officials with the Santa Clara County public health office, who have been testing raw milk products from retail stores “as a second line of consumer protection.”
County officials identified the virus in “one sample of raw milk purchased at a retail outlet,” and then had it verified by the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System, at the University of California in Davis.
“This isn’t surprising, given how quickly H5N1 seems to be spreading among farms in California and given the fact that these outbreaks on farms are being discovered in large part due to bulk testing of raw milk from farms,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University in Providence, R.I “What we don’t know is how much risk H5N1 poses to people that drink unpasteurized, infected milk.”
The test was positive only for the “H5” part of the virus. However, health officials say an H5 finding in a California dairy product is likely H5N1. No other H5 bird flu viruses have been detected in dairy cows.
