ST. PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota health officials say milk from state cow farms will be tested for bird flu starting next month. Milk haulers already collect samples for routine testing while loading tankers at dairy farms. Some raw milk samples will go to the Minnesota Veterinary Diagnostic Lab for H5N1 tests.

Consumers are clear in this new survey that they do not want to consume cow’s milk affected by bird flu virus, even if the milk is pasteurized and the risk of infection is low,” says Dr. Anna Herby, nutrition education specialist with the Physicians Committee.

A new strain of H5N9 bird flu was detected at a commercial duck operation in California's Merced County. All the ducks were euthanized.

Dairy cows crowd a fence waiting to be milked in Ridgeway, Minn., in April 2024. Samples from each of Minnesota's 1,625 permitted dairy farms will undergo testing once a month for H5N1, the virus commonly known as bird flu.