On Tuesday, April 23, 2024, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that grocery store milk has tested positive for H5N1 fragments using a quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) test. This test does not give information about the viability of the virus. A qPCR test can be positive even if the searched-for organism is dead.
Additional testing such as virus isolation and egg inoculation tests are needed to make a conclusion about milk safety. Pasteurization studies are still being done, but it is incredibly unlikely the virus survives pasteurization.
FDA is currently conducting this additional testing and stated in their update on April 25, 2024, "Early work by NIH-funded investigators indicates an absence of infectious virus in their studies of retail milk. To date, the retail milk studies have shown no results that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe. Epidemiological signals from our CDC partners continue to show no uptick in human cases of flu and no cases of H5N1, specifically, beyond the one known case related to direct contact with infected cattle. These important efforts are ongoing, and we are committed to sharing results from both the qPCR and egg inoculation tests as soon as possible."
There is no concern at this time about the safety of the commercial milk supply.
FDA updates have additional information about the issue.
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