News & Perspective

(CIDRAP News) – Researchers who spent the past 3 years testing pigs for influenza A viruses at county fairs in Ohio found that infected animals commonly appear clinically normal, highlighting one of the challenges health officials faced in preventing the spread of variant influenza to humans at fairs this summer.

(CIDRAP News) – The swine-origin H1N2 virus found in three Minnesotans last week carries the matrix gene from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic virus, marking the first time such a virus has been found in humans, according to state and federal health officials.

Minnesota health officials today reported the state's first cases of the novel H3N2 flu mainly linked to contact with pigs at agricultural fairs. And with cases of H3N2v climbing across the nation, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently urged schools to be on the lookout for infections.

(CIDRAP News) – New details about the three most recent human infections with a novel swine-origin influenza virus have emerged over the past few days, along with a preliminary report of similar viruses in a few pigs.

(CIDRAP News) – Government officials and researchers may have underestimated the potential role of pigs as "mixing vessels" for influenza viruses and the importance of swine surveillance for identifying new pandemic threats, veterinary experts from Mexico asserted recently.

Jun 3, 2009

(CIDRAP News) – The tentative detection of the novel swine influenza H1N1 virus in an Alberta swine herd over the weekend shook Canada's pork industry and raised concern about the potential for new hybrid viruses to emerge.

(CIDRAP News) – Scientists report that H5N1 avian influenza viruses may be adapting to pigs, as evidenced by the finding that H5N1 viruses isolated from pigs in Indonesia were less harmful to mice than were H5N1 viruses from chickens.