H1N1 Prevention at 150th State Fair

A pig getting ready for show at the 150th Mississippi State Fair

Concern has risen about preventing the spread of H1N1, or swine flu, at the 150th Mississippi State Fair in Jackson. As MPB's Carl Gibson reports, fair organizers hope to keep the disease away from Mississippi's prized swine...

(hog squealing)

One swine farmer showing his stock is Chip Ott, from Cleveland, Mississippi. He says the virus was never a concern for his hogs...

OTT: Most think it comes from pigs, and they're concerned about it. But the people that know, you know, its sorta funny for us. And so, no big deal.

H1N1 is known as "swine flu" colloquially. However, the extension swine specialist with Mississippi State University says that term is a misnomer. Mark Crenshaw adds people are the carriers, not the hogs...

CRENSHAW: Yeah, I really can't tell you why it got termed "swine flu." My understanding is that the novel H1N1 virus is a component of swine, human and avian. And for some reason, they tagged it "swine flu" and that stuck.

Chip Ott's daughter Cameron got the hogs ready for this year's state fair. She says its business as usual...

OTT: We just go out, we wash their pens every day. We give them baths sometimes. And we feed them twice a day.

Crenshaw says people can avoid infecting livestock by using good hygiene...

CRENSHAW: We've sent out biosecurity protocols to producers, encouraging them to protect their pigs from this virus. We don't want to get this virus in the pig population.

Those showing flu-like symptoms are encouraged to avoid handling the animals.