Is it possible to get bird flu by eating a raw egg from a chicken which has it?

Question

I like my eggs slightly undercooked so that they are runny and ahve some translucent bit in it. My fiance says that unless I hard boil them, I run teh risk of catching H5N1!!!! Can that be?

Answer 1

It is theoretically possible, but no known cases have been caused that way (or even by eating chicken).

Answer 2

Yes, absolutely you can get H5N1 flu from eating a raw egg from an infected chicken.

The outside of the shell will be infected, and the yolk will also be infected. You would have to cook the egg to a very temperature to kill the virus in the yolk - a much higher temp that we usually cook eggs.

Many people who have been infected got the virus from eating improperly prepared chickens that were infected. This has happened in Africa and Asia. But most of these chickens were obviously sick and were eaten anyway (it's a cultural difference. In the western world, we expect that the chicken we buy from the grocery store wasn't sick before it was slaughtered.)

Also, if someone is preparing to cook infected meat, they get the virus on their hands, knife, cutting board, sink, and whatever else they touch. That is a real problem.

It doesn't seem as though there is contaminated chicken or eggs being sold in western countries though. I think we'd see many more deaths if there were. Who knows when that will change.

Answer 3

its possible but more likely you will get food poisoning, not that we care.