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| PIGS: Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain |
When it
rains, it pours. Dr. Patricia Quinlisk, medical director for the Iowa Department of Public Health, announced today that a novel H3N2 influenza A strain had infected three Iowa children. Evidence points to one child transmitting the virus to the other two. There have been seven prior cases of this strain, all in the US (Maine, Indiana and Pennsylvania) and all apparently linked to animal exposure, which makes the Iowa cases unique. All but one case has been in children under 10 years old, suggesting prior year exposure to H3N2 might be protective. Perhaps it's ironic that this novel swine strain was first transmitted from human-to-human right here in pig country.
Sources:
Des Moines Register 11/22/2011 and
Winnipeg Free Press 11/22/2011
Addendum: Iowa just
added 2,300 jobs, which I think is about double our human population. I think two
job seekers family members (update: actually just in for Thanksgiving) from other states even moved in with Dan this past weekend. Getting crowded here, which might be increasing the flu transmission.
Actual update on the virus: "In these ten most recently reported cases, the virus has been a
swine H3N2 virus with the
M segment gene borrowed from the
2009 H1N1 virus. Essentially a hybrid – a
new reassortant virus - that until this summer had not been seen before." source:
Avian Flu Diary
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