Inactivation of low pathogenicity notifiable avian influenza virus and lentogenic Newcastle disease virus following pasteurization in liquid egg products

Four million cases (38,623 metric tons) of liquid egg products are exported from the U.S. annually. The presence of low pathogenic notifiable avian influenza (LPNAI) within a country has resulted in restrictions on trade of egg products. Because liquid egg products are normally pasteurized, this study was performed to see if the standard Salmonella pasteurization parameters used as a food safety measure would be effective at inactivating 5 log10 tissue culture infectious dose (TCID50/ml) of LPNAI A/chicken/New York/13142/94 (H7N2) (LPNAI/NY/94) and another common poultry vaccine virus, lentogenic Newcastle disease virus A/chicken/United States/B1/1948 (lNDV/B1/48) in four egg products. Survival curves were generated to determine D and z values, and the log reduction due to the lethality process. The thermal inactivation of LPNAI/NY/94 and lNDV/B1/48 in sugared (10%), fortified, plain, and salted egg yolk (10%) resulted in D60–63.3 values of less than 1 min, and z ranging from 5.4 to 21.7 °C. The log reduction due to the lethality processes ranged from 5.2D to 48D. The data demonstrated that LPNAI virus and lNDV would not survive the standard Salmonella pasteurization processes for liquid egg products.