As reports of bird flu circulate south of the border, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has released the latest results of its national testing program.
The update released Tuesday includes 600 tests of dairy products from retail outlets. No evidence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) was found in samples collected from coast to coast, including Canada’s western provinces, Ontario, Quebec and Canada’s Atlantic provinces.
“Commercially available milk and dairy products remain safe to consume,” says the press release from the CFIA and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).
The authorities point out that even if fragments of the virus were found in the samples, they would have been rendered harmless by the pasteurization process to which the milk is subjected before sale, along with other harmful bacteria and viruses. The test, the press release states, is capable of detecting even non-infectious fragments of HPAI.
Milk samples as indicator
The cross-country testing program is part of what federal and international authorities call the One Health approach, a “proactive” surveillance program designed to identify public health threats before their effects are felt.
The testing of milk samples is carried out in parallel with passive surveillance of the virus in live cattle. HPAI is a notifiable disease in all animals, although no suspected cases of the disease have been reported to the authorities to date.
“No HPAI fragments are present in the milk,” the press release concludes. “This supports recent reports that the virus has not been detected in Canadian dairy cows.”
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