On Aug. 13, 2024, the FDA announced the results from the agency’s second survey of retail dairy products. Samples were processed and analyzed by a USDA-Agricultural Research Services (ARS) laboratory from June 18 – July 31, 2024. All 167 samples were found to be negative for viable H5N1 virus. The FDA’s second sampling survey tested dairy products collected at retail locations, including aged raw milk cheese, pasteurized fluid milk and products made from pasteurized milk, such as pasteurized cheeses, cream cheese, butter, and ice cream.

The samples, collected by a third party, were aseptically repackaged to remove identifying manufacturing marks and then sent to USDA-ARS for extraction and analysis. USDA reported the results to the FDA. No viable virus was detected in the samples. These results strengthen previous assessments that commercial pasteurization inactivates the H5N1 virus. USDA ARS and FDA are submitting the survey results for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. The prepublication is available at https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.08.11.24311811v1