High Path Avian Flu has been found in dairy herds across 14 states this year, and millions of birds have been culled since the outbreak began in 2022.
Despite the virus’s long reach, the food supply has remained safe. However, North Carolina ag officials say the message when dairy cows first became infected was less than clear.
“The first article that I read, the headline was, “High Path AI Found in Milk.” Now that scares the devil out of you, but if you read the article down four or five paragraphs, it did say that, yes, it was found in the milk, but these were dead particles, and there was no wild virus in the milk. So pasteurization did what’s pasteurization was supposed to do. It killed the virus.”
Several dairy workers have been infected because of their close contact to the animals. Troxler says in order to keep the entire industry safe, no one can let their guard down.
“We’ve got to be testing. We’ve got to be doing research. We talked about, is there going to be maybe a vaccine in the future, but the key to it is to keep it from mutating, keep the numbers of the virus down so fast response, when we get a high path avian flu outbreak in our poultry herds, we’re on that quick. Isolate. Do what you got to do, but don’t let it spread. That keeps the numbers down.”
For the most recent case in California, the state’s Health Department is working alongside the Ag Department to monitor workers at those facilities. The situation is not considered a public health threat, and officials stress the food and milk supply remains safe.
