Photo: Dan Goldblatt/WFIU News
Health officials caution people to wash their hands after coming into contact with any livestock.
Sixty-eight people in Monroe County have contracted influenza A, a virus that was found in pigs at the county’s fair earlier this month, according to the Monroe County Health Department.
The department says it continues to monitor those individuals to determine the seriousness of the cases.
“We are now interviewing the local people whose cases were confirmed,” Monroe County Health Department Administrator Penny Caudill said in a press release. “We’re documenting how the virus may have been transmitted and how ill the people have become.”
Caudill says as far as her department can tell, the virus has not spread from human to human.
Symptoms of variant influenza A virus are similar to seasonal flu symptoms. They include fever, chills, headache, coughing, sore throat, muscle aches and, in children, may include diarrhea and nausea, the Health Department says.
The Indiana State Department of Health said 113 cases had been confirmed statewide. Nine pigs in Monroe County have also tested positive.
WFIU/WTIU’s Julie Rawe contributed to this report.
