By DOUG GRAVES

Ohio Correspondent

COLUMBUS, Ohio — There are many remaining county fairs in Ohio this summer and fall, and if you keep a close lookout, chances are good you’ll catch Dr. Andrew Bowman and his research staff from The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine at one.

They're canvassing fair barns, swabbing the snouts of pigs for novel strains of the flu that are likely to impact humans. “Every flu pandemic begins in animals and, very often, in pigs,” Bowman said. “When at the county fair you can get up close to just about any farm animal, and pigs are believed to be the mixing vessels for the flu virus.

“At the fair, we can access pigs from lots of farms in one place, so we can do surveillance very efficiently rather than going farm-to-farm to find out what flu strains are out there.”

He and his staff travel to more than 100 fairs each year, swabbing these snouts and taking samples. The program began after the 2009 flu pandemic, which began in pigs and resulted in more than 60 million cases of the flu and 12,000 deaths in the United States when it spread to humans.

“If we can identify high-risk strains before they make that leap into humans, we might be able to prevent those strains from ever being introduced, or at least lessen the impact of those new strains,” Bowman said.

He explained these new strains are especially dangerous because “we don’t have any immunity to them, making them more likely to cause severe illness and death.”

Current flu vaccines don’t protect against new strains, but Bowman hopes the county fair program will change that. The samples his team collects from the pigs are taken to a lab for testing. If the flu is detected, researchers grow the virus in the lab and genetically sequence it to assess the risk to humans.

“The flu virus is always changing and, with current vaccine technology, we have to make the best guess for which strains might be circulating,” he noted. “The information we’re collecting from pigs can help us create a more broadly protective vaccine that is based on strains that are truly the biggest threat to people’s health.”

Although there’s a risk of people catching these viruses from animals at the fair, there are precautionary steps attendees can take to prevent exposure. Bowman recommends frequent hand-washing, as well as enjoying fair food and drinks outside of a barn area.

He also suggests that anyone at high risk, such as infants, the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems, should observe the animals from a distance.

“Getting an annual flu shot is still the best way for people to prevent illness,” Bowman added.