Despite their healthy appearance, several pigs on show at a 2009 U.S. state fair competition were infected with swine flu, according to a new study by University of Florida infectious disease experts.
Up to 20 percent of show pigs at the 2009 Minnesota state fair were infected, and an infected animal was also found at the 2009 South Dakota fair, the researchers report in the September issue of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal.
The findings come in the wake of recent CDC warnings to fairgoers and reports of new swine flu strains, called H3N2 variants, in people who had direct or indirect contact with pigs at agricultural fairs.
"The new H3N2 variant viruses that are circulating now in pigs and apparently affecting people at pig shows are offsprings of the 2009 pandemic virus that spread throughout the world," said lead investigator Dr. Gregory Gray, chairman of the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions department of environmental and global health, and a member of UF’s Emerging Pathogens Institute. "It mixed with the viruses that were already present in pigs and out has come a new progeny virus."
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Univ. of Florida News
August 15, 2012.