Manila, May 7 -- The Department of Agriculture (DA) said Monday there's no need to ban milk from the United States despite the outbreak of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) among dairy cattle in the said country.

"It's not a big issue, iyong pag-move ng (the movement of) AI from birds to baka (cattle). At this point in time, we're working on it, studying it, but we're not going to ban it," DA Assistant Secretary Constante Palabrica said in an ambush interview.

"Base sa huling pag-aaral, kapag pinasteurize mo yung milk wala ring silbi ang AI, hindi kayang mag-infect ng tao coming from milk ng infected na baka (If you pasteurize the milk, the AI has no more effect, and milk from infected cow cannot infect humans)," he pointed out....