Mild swine flu outbreak linked to fairs

ATLANTA -- Don't pet the pigs.

That's the message state and county fair visitors got yesterday from health officials who reported a fivefold increase of cases of a new strain of swine flu that spreads from pigs to people. Most of the cases are linked to the fairs, where visitors are in close contact with infected pigs.

This flu has mild symptoms and it's not really spreading from person to person.

"This is not a pandemic situation," said Dr. Joseph Bresee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But any flu can be a risk for some people, and people should be cautious when they can, he added.

The case count jumped from 29 a week ago to 158 after a wave of new cases in Indiana and Ohio, said Bresee, the agency's chief of influenza epidemiology. Most of those infected are children, probably from working closely with displaying and visiting pigs at the agricultural fairs, Bresee said.

The recent cases include at least 113 in Indiana, 30 in Ohio, one in Hawaii and one in Illinois, Bresee said. Indiana officials said they had seven more confirmed cases than Bresee noted. That would raise the grand total to 165 so far.

Diagnosis is now quicker because CDC no longer must confirm a case with its own lab. In the past week, states began using CDC test kits to confirm cases themselves. The new cases were probably infected a week or two ago.

A concern: The new strain has a gene from the 2009 pandemic strain that might let it spread more easily than pig viruses normally do.

The good news is the flu does not seem to be unusually dangerous. The illnesses have been mild and no one has died. All of the recent cases appear to have spread from pigs to humans, meaning it's not very contagious, at least between people.

Pigs spread flu virus just like people do, with coughing, sneezing and runny noses, so people can get it by touching pigs or being near them.

Health officials are urging people to take precautions. Fairgoers should wash their hands and avoid taking food and drinks into livestock barns, officials said, while pregnant women, young children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems should be particularly careful.