Via Xinhua: Finland confirms human-to-pig transmission of A/H1N1 flu. Excerpt:
Finland has confirmed the country's first known human-to-pig transmission of A/H1N1 influenza, said Finnish Food Safety Authority and Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare in a statement on Monday.
According to the agencies, samples taken from some pigs of a pig farm in Southern Pohjanmaa region, west in the country tested positive for the A/H1N1 flu viruses.These transmissions are happening pretty often, and similar transmissions have no doubt happened for centuries.
I recall Christmas Eve 1983, when my wife and I wandered around a farm across the road from our institute in suburban Guangzhou. The owners, proud and prosperous, showed us their new brick pigsty, with some handsome residents, just a few steps from the farmhouse itself.
The family was making money in those early years of China's takeoff, putting a new floor on the house, and living in cheerful intimacy with their pigs and poultry. Guangdong province has lived like that for centuries, and never more successfully than in the last 30 years.
