Sep 6, 2011 (CIDRAP News) – Two more children in Pennsylvania were infected with a novel swine influenza A/H3N2 virus that includes a gene from the 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus, raising the number of such infections in the state to three, the Pennsylvania Department of Health (PDH) announced yesterday.
The two children, like the first case-patient reported Sep 2, attended the Washington County Agricultural Fair in southwestern Pennsylvania the week of Aug 13 to 20, PDH officials said in a press release. The first patient has recovered, and the other two patients are recovering, they said.
On Sep 2 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that one child each in Indiana and Pennsylvania had been infected with a swine-origin H3N2 virus that included the matrix gene from the 2009 H1N1 virus. The viruses were described as similar but not identical. Both of the children recovered. The Indiana child might have caught the virus from a caregiver who had had contact with pigs, the CDC said.
Investigators from the PDH and CDC have not yet determined exactly how the three Pennsylvania patients became infected, according to the PDH. The earlier CDC announcement, however, said the first patient, a girl, was exposed to pigs and other animals at the fair.
None of the three patients had any direct link to the others, according to Brandi Hunter-Davenport, a PDH spokeswoman. "Their only commonality was attending the fair," she told CIDRAP News today. More
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