Oregon commercial dairy farms will start testing for bird flu weekly

The Oregon Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday it will test the milk of every commercial dairy across the state each week. Oregon is not among the dairy-producing states that have reported a positive case of avian influenza on dairy cattle, but as outbreak concerns continue to rise, state agriculture regulators said they are taking a cautious measure.

The highly pathogenic avian influenza, or H5N1, virus has made its way across commercial and backyard poultry farms throughout the nation since around 2022. It wasn’t until March when it was detected for the first time at a Texas dairy farm.

Since then, over 700 herds across 16 states have tested positive for the virus, including herds in Nevada and Idaho. California, the nation’s largest dairy-producing state, has had the highest concentration of positive cases with over 500 confirmed cases. As of early December, Oregon has not had a case in cattle, although in November agriculture officials reported the first-ever case of avian flu in the U.S. on a pig at a Central Oregon farm.

There is evidence that suggests the H5N1 virus is mainly spreading from cow to cow, unlike in commercial or backyard poultry farms. Those birds usually catch the virus from wild migratory waterfowl.

Though there are no known active cases in Oregon, officials don’t want to have to play catch up if or when there is one, said Ryan Scholz, the state veterinarian for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

“We want to have a surveillance program in place before we have a case so that if we ever do have a case, if it is introduced, we can catch it before we’re weeks on to it and hopefully catch it at the first cow on the first farm and stop it there,” he said.

Tami Kerr, the executive director of the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association, a dairy lobbying group, told OPB the group supports the state’s decision.

“While pasteurization effectively eliminates pathogens from milk, our farmers recognize the importance of taking additional steps to protect herd health and prevent potential risks,” Kerr wrote in a statement

Oregon has over 140 commercial Grade A milk producers. That’s a designation given by the federal Food and Drug Administration, it essentially refers to the type of milk that can usually be found on grocery store shelves.

This announcement comes after the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued a federal order on Friday requiring milk producers and processors to share milk samples when requested, in an effort to test the nation’s milk supply for bird flu and put a halt to outbreaks.

Officials with the federal government say that federal policy will help them “swiftly identify which states, and specific herds within them, are affected with H5N1.” And that it will give farmers and farmworkers the ability to better protect themselves from getting sick.

California, Oregon, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi and Pennsylvania will be among the first states brought into the program for testing.

Health officials maintain the nation’s milk is safe to drink so long it’s been pasteurized, though they do warn people against drinking raw milk. Although scientists are still working to understand how drinking raw milk could make people sick with bird flu, some of the health risks of raw milk could include E. Coli or salmonella sickness.

In Oregon, people can only buy raw cow’s milk directly from a farm, it’s not sold at traditional grocery stores. Scholz said there is currently no plan to test milk from raw dairy farms. That’s because those farms don’t tend to have the same high-level risk as larger commercial farms.

“They tend to be smaller operations that are typically fairly disconnected with the traditional Grade A dairy world,” he said. “And they don’t tend to have a lot of the same high-risk activities that are associated with transmission of this virus from farm to farm and into new areas.”

The agency could later regulate that segment of the industry, but they are focusing on the high risk facilities first, Scholz said.