Reuters Raw milk containing bird flu virus infects mice in study.
Feeding raw milk contaminated with bird flu to mice infected them with the virus, adding to evidence that consumption of unpasteurized milk is not safe for humans, according to a study published on Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Bird flu has caused serious or fatal infections globally among people in close contact with infected wild birds or poultry, and scientists have long viewed the virus as being capable of causing a global health crisis.
.S. officials this week said that a second human infection had been confirmed in a Michigan dairy worker after the bird flu virus was first detected in dairy cattle in late March. Both workers’ symptoms were limited to conjunctivitis, or pink eye.
In the study, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory fed droplets of raw milk from infected dairy cattle to five mice.