COLUMBUS, Ohio — The past two years have been a rocky road for several county fairs across Ohio and into Kentucky. Several dozen influenza cases tested positive for the H3N2v strain of swine virus, including nine cases at last year’s Butler County Fair in Hamilton, Ohio.

Several county fairs in Ohio and Indiana last season were linked to swine flu cases, with at least 11 Ohioans hospitalized after contracting the virus. The Centers for Disease Control said 10 children were hospitalized after visiting Ohio fairs, and a 61-year-old woman from Madison County died after having contact with hogs at the Ross County Fair.

This fair season, Ohio public health departments and the Northern Kentucky health departments have another growing concern: fair food. The health officials from Ohio and Kentucky are cautioning fairgoers to be wary of how fair food is prepped and advising them to wash their hands frequently.

"We see a lot of veteran food vendors," said Northern Kentucky Health Department food program manager Ted Talley. "To issue a permit, they can have no critical violations. We see good compliance."

Even so, Talley stressed that people who are at the fairs should remain vigilant and wash their hands before digging into the food.

"A lot of these fairs have animal petting, contact with animals, people riding horses," he said. "It’s very important to wash those hands no matter what you’re doing."

The past two fair seasons had officials warning fairgoers that the influenza virus such as H3N2 was not unusual in swine and can be directly transmitted from swine to people and from people to swine. The precaution there was simple: Wash the hands.

This season, with the high temperatures expected later this month, health inspectors check vendors for a variety of compliance issues, including food temperatures and the three-sink requirement – rinse, wash and sanitize.

Talley said there are precautions that fairgoers should abide by:

•Bare hand contact with ready-to-eat food is a no-no.

•Make sure the person preparing the food wears gloves when touching the food.

•If the hot food is not hot or the cold food is not cold, do not eat it.

•Peer under a tent and look to see if someone is wiping their forehead then going back to work without washing.

•If it looks funny, if it smells funny and doesn’t seem right, don’t eat it.

Ohio officials didn’t have statistics available, but Northern Kentucky Health Department did. Thus far this year, that Kentucky department inspected 363 outdoor food sites. Of those, 266 received a 100 percent score, 96 achieved 90 to 99 percent and one received an 89.

There are county or independent fairs in all 88 counties in Ohio. Thirty have been held, with the remainder to be held in August through October.