Two people contract swine flu after visiting pigs at fairs

The CDC recommends fairgoers avoid eating or drinking while visiting swine exhibits, and that the immunocompromised avoid the pens altogether

At least two people who recently visited pig exhibits at livestock fairs have caught the swine flu, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.

Both patients reportedly became ill with flu-like symptoms approximately 10 days after their visits to exhibits featuring pigs are different fairs early in July.

Neither patient required hospitalisation, according to CNN. The CDC said that the patients' infections did not appear to be spreading to other humans.

Both of the incidents were identified by the Michigan Department of Health.

Though rare, a few cases of swine flu linked to animal exhibitions are reported each year.

Many county and state fairs feature pens filled with livestock animals — pigs, horses, rabbits, chickens, etc — where buyers can browse for new animals and non-buyers can observe the creatures up close.

While there are typically only a few instances of humans catching diseases from the pens each year, the prospect of an animal virus jumping to and infecting a human — and then that human infecting others with a mutated version of the animal virus — is enough to keep the CDC invested in monitoring the spread. Early theories concerning the origins of Covid-19 postulated that the virus began by jumping from a pangolin to a human in a Chinese wet market before mutating and infecting a huge portion of the world's population.

The CDC has warned fairgoers not to eat or drink while visiting the animal exhibits. The agency also advised against contact with animals that appear ill and hand washing after each visit to a swine exhibit.

Individuals with compromised immune systems are especially at risk of spillover infections; the CDC recommends that they either avoid the exhibits altogether or wear a mask while visiting.

While Michigan health officials are busy dealing with their swine flu cases, doctors in Florida are dealing with an uptick in leprosy, and physicians throughout the south have had to watch for malaria infections.

Physicians in central Florida have identified a hotbed of leprosy infections, with no clear indicators of how exactly the patients contracted the disease. Malaria — which used to be far more prevalent in the US before active public works programs to drain swamps and destroy mosquitoes nests effectively eradicated US-borne cases — has seen a slight uptick in cases this year.

This year marked the first reported US-borne cases of malaria in 20 years.