Can swine influenza be spread from person-to-person?
The disease can be spread by infected pigs to people, through direct contact with contaminated items. There have been recorded cases of person-to-person spread. For example, an isolated case in 1988 resulted in multiple human infections, with antibody evidence of virus transmission from the patient to health care workers who had close contact with the patient. In the same year, a healthy woman (age 32) died of pneumonia; a swine H1N1 flu virus was detected. Four days before she became ill, the patient visited a county fair, where there was widespread influenza-like illness among the exhibited pigs. Tests showed that three out of four exhibitors tested had evidence of swine flu but no serious illness was detected. The virus was also found in some of the health care workers involved. Pigs are susceptible to both human and pig viruses. If a pig were infected with the pig flu virus at the same time as a human flu virus, this could allow a new form of the pig virus to arise with the ability
