United States: Ascertaining the risks of drinking raw cow’s milk during the current H5N1 avian flu virus outbreak in the U. S. dairy farms, scientists discovered that when mice were fed with milk they rapidly began to fall ill.
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According to Yoshihiro Kawaoka, the team lead and virologist from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, “Our data indicate that HPAI A[H5N1] virus in untreated milk can infect susceptible animals that consume it,” as US News reported.
Identification of bird flu in cattle
Early in March, scientists for the first time identified H5N1 bird flu, using samples of nasal secretion and milk of U. S. dairy cows. After that, the disease has been ascertained in many dairy herds in different states.
So far, H5N1 does not seem to be transmitted easily between animals and humans: So far, there have been only two reported human infections with the H5N1 avian flu virus that can be directly associated with the H5N1 outbreak in the US dairy cow population. Both have been noted among the dairy workers who spend reasonably long hours in close contact with the animals.
However, other industry specialists also agree with the notion that the belief that general milk supply is not dangerous as it is pasteurized and heating is lethal for the virus.
Moreover, according to the researchers, drinking unpasteurized “raw” milk, which appears to be very famous among a small group of consumers, may, in fact, put them at risk of passing H5N1 to other mammals, including people.
About the test on mice
In order to determine if that was the fact Kawaoka and his team fed the mice with raw cow’s milk that was later discovered to be infused with the H5N1 virus. The milk was delivered to the rodents through their mouths.
For example, the mice’s pilosity was “ruffled” and the animals were lethargic just one day after the milk had been shared with them as the researchers pointed out.
According to Kawaoka’s group, “All the animals survived until day 4 when they were euthanized to determine virus titers [levels] in multiple organs,” as US News reported.
It added, “We detected high virus titers in the respiratory organs [which suggests that infection may have occurred through the pharynx] and moderate virus titers in several other organs, findings consistent with the systemic infections typically caused by HPAI H5 viruses in mammals.”
The findings of the study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Friday.