Key Points
Recent outbreaks of bird fluin US dairy herds, poultry farms in Australia, and elsewhere, and isolated cases in humanshave raised the issue of food safety...
So can the virus transfer from infected farm animals to contaminate milk, meat, or eggs?.
Indeed, fragments of bird flu genetic material (RNA) were found in cows milk from the dairy herds associated with infected US farmers...
However, the spread of bird flu among cattle, and possibly to humans, is likely to have been caused through contact with contaminated milking equipment, not the milk itself...
The strains of bird flu identified in the Victorian and Western Australia outbreaks can cause human infection, although these are rare and typically result from close contact with infected live birds or contaminated environments..
