Tulsa World: Some fairs try to keep people and pigs apart

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Some fairs try to keep people and pigs apart
Officials say humans may give swine flu to pigs.

Piglets and children scramble at the Orleans County Fair in Barton, Vt., on Aug. 19. The fair provided bottles of hand sanitizer, and posted signs encouraged people to wash their hands after visiting livestock barns. Steve Legge/Associated Press

By LISA RATHKE Associated Press
Published: 8/29/2009 2:27 AM
Last Modified: 8/29/2009 4:39 AM

No sow and piglets in the children's barnyard at this year's Caledonia County Fair. No baby-pig chases, either.

Swine are unwelcome at Vermont's oldest fair — uninvited because of misconceptions about how the swine flu virus spreads. Although the novel H1N1 pandemic virus is primarily a human disease, transmitted from human to human, fair officials say they want to protect themselves from bad publicity or frivolous lawsuits if someone gets sick and blames it on a pig.

That puts the Caledonia County Fair at odds with most other fairs across the country, which are going to great lengths this year to protect their pigs from people since the virus can be transmitted to the animals by humans.

The virus, which has turned up in herds in Canada, Argentina and Australia, has yet to be found in pigs in the U.S. In one rare instance, it might have jumped from pigs to two hog inspectors in Canada, but officials told the Canadian Press they could not be certain.

Fairs and petting zoos routinely encourage handwashing to protect people from animal-borne illnesses like E. coli. Now some fairs are urging handwashing to protect the animals — specifically pigs — from the current pandemic.

When the Oregon State Fair opened in Salem on Friday, visitors confronted pig barriers, recommended by the state veterinarian.

"Our pigs aren't sick, are you?" say signs that will be posted at the fair. "If you're not feeling well, don't visit the pigs."

In Maine, agriculture officials have distributed posters to fairs with swine exhibits that ask fairgoers to stay out of the exhibit areas if they are showing signs of having the flu.

"Right now, we're more worried about people giving it to pigs, rather than vice versa," said state veterinarian Don Hoenig.

Similar signs were posted when the Nebraska State Fair opened in Lincoln on Friday.

North Carolina, the nation's second-largest hog-producing state behind Iowa, is going one step further, installing wooden barriers around the sow and piglet pens at its upcoming state fair in Raleigh and the North Carolina Mountain Fair in Fletcher.

"The handwashing stations have been there for years but now the message is a little bit different: wash both before and after, not just after. You know, keep the animals healthy as well as keep yourself healthy," said Dr. Karen Beck, a veterinarian with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

But officials at Vermont's oldest fair, which runs through Sunday, have decided to take no chance, banning all swine from the Lyndonville event.

"The perception that swine flu was transmitted between pigs and human is why we did this. In reality, we know there's no transmission between pigs and humans," said Fair President Dick Lawrence. By LISA RATHKE Associated Press

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