Bird flu unlikely to spread in tap water

Bird flu viruses are unlikely to survive sewerage and drinking water treatment systems, making it doubtful contaminated feces could infect plant workers and spread through tap water, scientists at Cornell University said.

The researchers studied a low-pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza virus, which they said resembled the lethal H5N1 strain circulating in Asia and Africa. Water treatments, including chlorination, ultraviolet radiation and bacterial digesters killed the microbes, said Araceli Lucio-Forster, a microbiologist at Cornell, in Ithaca, N.Y.

The finding may reduce concerns about drinking water as a mode of infection during a pandemic. World health officials say the H5N1 flu virus, which has killed 157 people since 2003, may spark a global outbreak if it mutates to become as infectious to humans as seasonal flu.

“All these operators that run the plants were concerned that if there were an influenza outbreak and everyone were sick, is it going to come into the plant and infect them and others?” said Dwight Bowman, a professor of parasitology at Cornell and co-author of the study.