Pasteurization destroys H5N1 bird flu in milk

Pasteurization completely inactivates the H5N1 bird flu virus in milk — even if viral proteins linger.

Drinking properly pasteurized milk contaminated with avian influenza remnants won’t increase vulnerability to the infection, researchers report in September 26 in Science Advances. Heat treatment completely neutralized the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 virus while leaving some viral genomic material intact. Those remnants didn’t make mice sick when they…