(Radio Iowa) – Iowa agriculture officials are closely monitoring new developments with highly pathogenic avian influenza in the country. The U-S-D-A reported dairy cattle in Texas and Kansas tested positive for the virus last month. Earlier, avian flu was confined to domestic poultry and other bird species. Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig says other confirmed cases have been reported in Idaho, MIchigan and Ohio.

“What happens is, you’ve got cows that start to go off feed,” Naig says. “They might run a fever, their milk production drops, and that’s how folks started to realize and pick up that they had a problem. So, that certainly affects the health of dairy herds and the profitability of dairy, but, the good news is, those dairy cattle recover, just like you and I get over the flu.”

Last weekend, the Centers for Disease Control issued a health alert to inform clinicians, state health departments and the public of a case of avian influenza in a person who had contact with dairy cows presumed to be infected with the virus. Though the case was confirmed in a farm worker in Texas, Naig says the public should not be alarmed.

“There’s only ever been two confirmed cases of high path avian influenza in humans,” he says. “One was in Colorado a few years ago, related to a poultry site. And, the second one now is a dairy worker, a worker at one of these positive sites who had a lot of contact with those cattle and milk. So you can understand why that might have happened, but there is no indication that it moves from person to person.” Naig adds, the avian flu doesn’t constitute a food safety issue.

“As long as you are drinking pasteurized milk,” Naig says, “the milk that you and I buy at the grocery store, or that kids are drinking at school during a lunch hour, that is pasteurized. That kills any viruses and bacteria that are of concern, that’s where I can say this is not a food safety issue, but one that we are watching very closely, trying to anticipate how we can stay ahead of it here in the state of Iowa.”

More information regarding avian influenza is available on the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship’s website.