Pasteurized milk serves as a passive surveillance tool for highly pathogenic avian influenza virus in dairy cattle

Our aim was to determine whether retail milk could serve as a practical tool for virological monitoring and to evaluate the use of full-length genome segment amplification for extracting genomic sequence information from this highly processed matrix. Our results link influenza A viruses sequences in store-bought milk to the cattle outbreak and highlight both the potential and the limitations of retail milk as a surveillance window. Together, these findings provide evidence that influenza A virus RNA can be repeatedly detected in retail milk in patterns linked to specific supply chains, with genomic data confirming close relationships to the viruses circulating in cattle.