Samples of retail dairy products recently tested for the avian flu virus, including cottage cheese and sour cream, did not detect any viable virus that would pose a risk to consumers, Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday United States Administration.
During a joint press briefing with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Dr. Donald Prater, Acting Director of the FDA’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, shared updates update on ongoing avian flu investigations.
An outbreak of avian flu among dairy cows in several states was first reported in late March, according to the CDC.
Early last week, initial test results from the National Retail Milk Study, which sampled 96 pasteurized dairy products, showed through PCR testing that about 1 in 5 retail milk samples had been tested positive for HPAI viral fragments.
This week, the agencies announced that they had detected “no viable virus” in a second group of test samples.
Cows gather at a cattle farm in Austin, Texas, April 2, 2024. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), dairy cows on farms in several U.S. states have fallen ill with bird flu.
Adam Davis/EPA/Shutterstock
“Today, we are announcing an additional set of results from our national study of 297 total retail dairy samples. The second group represents 201 additional retail pasteurized dairy samples, including cottage cheese and cream sour in addition to liquid milk,” Prater says. “These samples underwent acute qPCR (quantitative polymerase chain reaction) testing, as well as the same egg inoculation test, and we are encouraged that these preliminary tests also did not detect any viable virus.”
To further ensure the safety of other milk-derived products for the younger population, the FDA said it “tested samples of retail powdered infant formula and powdered dairy products marketed as infant formula,” which all tested negative, “indicating no detection of viral fragments or viruses.”
These additional preliminary results “further confirm the safety of the commercial milk supply in the United States” as well as the effectiveness of pasteurization in inactivating HPAI, the agency said.
The FDA continues to test samples of pooled raw milk intended for pasteurization and processing for commercial use to help characterize potential virus levels that pasteurization may encounter, which will also be used to inform studies aimed at further validate pasteurization.
A woman shops in the dairy section of a supermarket in New York on January 27, 2024.
Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images
The FDA, along with the CDC, USDA, and local health partners, is continuing to monitor milk production, processing, and pasteurization to manage the emerging disease.
The FDA also reiterated this week that it strongly discourages the consumption of raw milk and recommends that the industry not manufacture or sell raw milk or raw milk products.
This is a developing story. Please check again for updates.
ABC News
