As we all know, the H5N1 outbreak in dairy cattle is an evolving situation. To provide NWNY dairy producers and industry stakeholders with up-to-date information, we are starting a weekly update. Our goal is to distill down news on regulations, funding, the state of the virus and useful resources into a quick read for our busy farmers! As always, please reach out to our team’s dairy specialists if we can be of service: Kaitlyn Lutz and Margaret Quaassdorff.
Fair Regulations:
- NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets is now requiring all lactating cattle be tested for HPAI within 7 days prior to entering a fair (state, county or other exhibitions).
- The test must be submitted under the direction of a veterinarian and sent to an accredited lab.
- The test is done on a milk sample.
- The 7 days starts from the day the sample was taken.
- If you’re going to multiple fairs, you will need a negative test 7 days prior to each fair entry.
- The cost of veterinary sample collection, shipping and testing can be covered by the USDA up to a limit. For details, see the USDA press release or talk to your herd veterinarian.
- It is strongly recommended to bring a copy of the negative HPAI test result with you to animal check-in. The test must include: laboratory, accession, date, test result and animals tested (official ID). Animals with pending results will NOT be allowed to enter fairs.
- If you are a fair organizer or exhibitor, please read this USDA document: Recommendations to Minimize Influenza Transmission at Dairy Cattle Livestock Exhibitions, published June 24th.
Food safety:
- Pasteurization: On Friday 6/28, the FDA announced the results of a research study confirming that high temperature short time pasteurization (which is what is commonly used to pasteurize retail milk) was effective in neutralizing the H5N1 virus.
- Raw milk is still not recommended since the consumption of H5N1 virus in milk is not known to be safe. Human infection with H5N1 is a serious concern for public health.
