Two Test Positive for Swine Flu

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Two people in Wisconsin have tested positive for a new strain of swine flu. Both are young, and both contracted the disease after attending the state fair.

The Wisconsin State Lab of Hygiene has confirmed two cases of a variant of swine flu known as H3N2. Jim Kazmierczak is the State Public Health Veterinarian with the Department of Health Services. He says this strain of swine flu has been around since the 1990’s, but it is behaving differently now.”What’s new here is the number of human cases between the outbreaks that have occurred this year in Indiana and Ohio primarily. There are already over 150 cases of human infections with this H3N2 virus that CDC has reported out.”

One of the cases involved a young adult from southeastern Wis. who worked at the state fair, and an adolescent from western Wis. who visited the fair. According to Kazmierczak, health officials are monitoring the virus. He says they are not too worried because it is only jumping from pigs to people, “If it’s true that it’s not, that this H3N2 virus is not easily transmissible from person to person, I think we can expect the numbers to stay relatively low.”

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Kazmierczak says people can still enjoy fairs, but they should keep food, drinks and things like baby bottles away from swine exhibits. He says high risk populations like infants and the elderly should stay away.

Symptoms of the H3N2 swine flu are identical to seasonal flu including fever, nausea and lack of appetite.