N Engl J Med . Stability of Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Virus in Milk from Infected Cows and Virus-Spiked Milk

[tetano]

N Engl J Med


. 2025 Dec 4;393(22):2271-2273.
doi: 10.1056/NEJMc2502494. Stability of Avian Influenza A(H5N1) Virus in Milk from Infected Cows and Virus-Spiked Milk

Lizheng Guan[SUP] 1 [/SUP], David Pattinson[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Amie J Eisfeld[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Tong Wang[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Peter J Halfmann[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Gabriele Neumann[SUP] 1 [/SUP], Tera R Barnhardt[SUP] 2 [/SUP], Alexis C Thompson[SUP] 3 [/SUP], Amy K Swinford[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Kiril M Dimitrov[SUP] 4 [/SUP], Keith Poulsen[SUP] 5 [/SUP], Yoshihiro Kawaoka[SUP] 6 [/SUP]



Affiliations

• PMID: 41337721
• DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc2502494

No abstract available
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[sharon sanders]

snip

HPAI A(H5N1) virus in raw milk from infected cows stored at 4°C can remain infectious for at least 5 weeks, with a modest 2-log decline in titer.[SUP]3[/SUP] An extended analysis of raw milk samples from four different infected cows showed that infectious virus could be detected for up to 22 weeks at 4°C (Figure 1A), with decay rates only slightly greater than those in virus-spiked medium or phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) (Figure 1B). In contrast, when virus isolates from the same infected cows were spiked into raw milk from healthy cows, virus was undetectable within 2 weeks (Figure 1A). Similar decay (within 3 weeks) was observed for five other influenza viruses spiked into healthy cows’ milk, whereas stability was retained in PBS or medium (Fig. S1). These observations suggest that the stability of virus produced in the mammary gland is enhanced.​


https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2502494