Since 2011, there have been more human swine flu cases reported in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world. Most have occurred at farm-animal showcases. Could the next pandemic start at the county fair?:
Teenage handlers at the youth swine exhibition at the Perry County Fairgrounds display their showmanship skills, in New Lexington, Ohio, April 29, 2023.
“I think there’s this real feeling here in the U.S. that disease is something that comes from elsewhere,” said Ann Linder, an associate director at the animal law and policy program at Harvard Law School. When the 2009 swine flu pandemic hit, influenza surveillance in pigs was limited, said Bowman, who was then a practicing veterinarian. But the outbreak was eye-opening, and Bowman, who attended veterinary school at Ohio State, returned to the university to work with one of his former professors on a swine surveillance project.
Fairs also put large crowds of people in close contact with pigs. “There’s children petting and touching the pigs and, at the same time, eating cotton candy and hot dogs and finger food,” Linder said.pillover is not a rare event. In 2012, a major swine flu outbreak caused more than 300 confirmed human cases; Bowman and his colleagues found evidence that the virus had jumped from pigs to people during at least seven different Ohio fairs.
Some bigger shows and fairs, which traditionally last a week, have also begun sending most pigs home after 72 hours. That timeline means that pigs that are infected at a show will be gone before they start shedding the virus. “They’re not on public display, where they’re infecting other animals or people,” Bowman said.
The activity is a mainstay of the Swientist program, which the team began developing in 2015 to teach young exhibitors how to keep their pigs, and themselves, healthy. At the New Lexington show, Nolting, who leads the program, also invited children to practice putting on and taking off personal protective equipment and gave away backpacks stuffed with activities, such as a biosecurity scavenger hunt.
The scientists shared their data with exhibitors and reassured them that they were not “just here to poke and prod and take,” Bowman said. They pitched themselves as partners with shared goals.
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