MONTREAL -- Quebec Agriculture Department officials say a strain of the H1N1 swine flu virus has been detected in a herd of pigs in the province but that there is no danger to the public.
The isolated case was identified by the federal government lab in Winnipeg last week after signs of the flu were detected in the herd at the end of June.
All the animals are now healthy, none has died and there has been no report of any human cases associated with this infection, which was described as very mild by Alain Laperle, a pathologist with the provincial Agriculture Department.
Clement Falardeau, a spokesman for the department, declined to release further details such as the name of the pigs' owner or the location of the herd.
"Since there is no danger to the public and the pigs are better, we will not be giving information on that," he said.
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Laperle stressed that this type of infection is the first of its kind since reports of swine flu first surfaced in April. The government has checked 160 herds.
He pointed out there is only an extremely slim risk of the flu spreading in other pig herds, given the health safety measures implemented since April.
"We are not completely sheltered because pigs are susceptible to the illness in the same way that humans are," Laperle said. "But at the moment, it does not appear that the virus is spreading much among pigs."
The type of virus that infected the animals was largely benign and they were sick for only a few days. It was detected through a monitoring program carried out by the provincial government.
Laperle pointed out that stringent measures are in place to ensure all pigs are healthy before they are killed for food.
