People who work with pigs encouraged to get the flu shot

By Bruce Cochrane, Farmscape

A Veterinary Pathologist with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine is encouraging the public, especially those who work with pigs, to get the annual flu shot.

Restrictions imposed in 2020 to slow the spread of COVID also slowed the transmission of influenza.
Dr. Susan Detmer, an Associate Professor with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, says we saw a lot less of the pandemic strain of H1N1 that had circulated among humans in pigs, but the lifting of restrictions has resulted a resumption in people transmitting the infection to pigs.

”I'm hoping that everyone who is eligible will go out and get their vaccine, whether or not they work with pigs. But I'd like to see people who are working with pigs get that vaccine to keep that pandemic H1N1 virus from going back and forth between pigs. Because we are starting at such a low level of circulation of everything in humans, it is quite possible that we could have another very low season of influenza but all of that can change,” says Dr. Susan Detmer of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon.

“With the Delta variant of the pandemic virus circulating, we've started to see more restrictions come into play and so less movement of people, less circulation of COVID means less circulation of influenza.
However, we're also seeing that people are getting out, they are traveling and they are interacting in these social events. All of that plays into potential modeling for an increase in influenza over the next year.
We do expect that there will be more circulation of influenza in people this year, just because people are moving around more but it will all depend on how much people do start to go back to interacting in social situations and at work.”

Dr. Detmer says the flu shot will protect people serious infections and will help break the cycle of human to pig to human to pig to human transmission of the pandemic H1N1 strain.

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