Bird Flu and Meat and Blood
Scientists in Vietnam have data suggesting that people are able to contract the bird flu (H5N1 virus) by ingesting undercooked meat and blood. According to Virologist Menno de Jong, who is head of the virology department at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Ho Chi Minh City:
"In a number of patients the only exposure risk has been drinking raw duck blood. That could imply that the gastrointestinal tract is also a route of transmission or a route of first infection, and there are experiments in animals'' that suggest this (Bloomberg).
Cooking kills the bird flu virus, but, as with other foodborne pathogens, there is the issue of contamination of other food products. If the blood of an infected bird gets onto some lettuce, that lettuce could then be a potential source of bird flu infection.
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