Source: Lisa M. Keefe, MEATINGPLACE, 9/7/11

The Centers for Disease Control has reported that two children — one each in Indiana and Pennsylvania — have been diagnosed with “febrile respiratory illness caused by swine-original influenza A,” the agency said in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

In the report, the agency explained that genetic analysis can distinguish animal origin influenza viruses from the seasonal human influenza viruses that resurface each year. The strain that sickened the two children is identified as H3N2. No epidemiologic link between the two cases has been identified, and although investigations are ongoing, no additional confirmed human infections with this virus have been detected, according to the report.

One of the viruses’ eight gene segments is from the 2009 Influenza A (H1N1) virus, a property that distinguishes them from other swine-origin influenza A viruses. The viruses are referred to as “reassortants” because they contain genes of the H3N2 virus that have been circulating in North American pigs since 1998, as well as the H1N1 virus from 2009.

Both of the children who took ill are under the age of 5, and both have recovered. One had visited a fair before getting sick, where she was in contact with swine. The other child reported having no direct contact with swine, but his caregiver had had contact with asymptomatic swine before he took ill.

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