BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. One Health
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fvets.2025.1590156
This article is part of the Research TopicEmerging Zoonotic Diseases: Understanding and Mitigating Risks at Animal-Human InterfacesView all 9 articles
Evaluating preventive measures for the zoonotic transmission of swine influenza A variant at agricultural fairs in the United States: A Mathematical Modeling Study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University College Station, College Station, Texas, United States
- 2Department of Animal Science, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Texas A&M University College Station, College Station, Texas, United States
- 3Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Texas A&M University College Station, College Station, Texas, United States
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Introduction: Swine exhibitions at agricultural fairs serve as unique environments where humans and pigs interact, and swine influenza A can spill over. As agricultural fairs present a substantial risk for zoonotic influenza outbreaks and potential pandemics, it is paramount to identify efficient preventive measures for mitigating the risk of variant influenza A transmission from pigs to humans at swine exhibitions.Methods: We developed a mathematical model of swine influenza A variant transmission at agricultural fairs. We fitted the model to empirical data of a 2011 zoonotic outbreak at a Pennsylvania agricultural fair. We used the fitted model to simulate and evaluate the impact of various control strategies, including preventive measures such as shortening the exhibition duration, enhanced biosecurity, pre-fair testing of pigs, and quarantine of sick animals.Results: The impact of control strategies was shown to vary substantially between preventive measures. . Shortening the length of the exhibition to three days generated the lowest prevalence of disease in pigs and humans. Increased biosecurity measures reduced the risk and size of swine influenza outbreaks among pigs and humans during the exhibition period. Due to the majority of pigs experiencing asymptomatic infections, case identification and quarantining of sick pigs did not significantly reduce the infection prevalence.Conclusion: Shortening the duration of swine exhibitions combined with enhanced biosecurity measures was shown to be the most effective method for preventing zoonotic transmission of swine influenza during agricultural fairs in the US. The study provides additional evidence on the potential benefits of shortened swine exhibitions.
Keywords: Agricultural fair, mathematical modeling, prevention, Swine influenza, Zoonotic events
Received: 08 Mar 2025; Accepted: 15 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pittman Ratterree, Chitlapilly Dass and Ndeffo-Mbah. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Martial Loth Ndeffo-Mbah, Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences, College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University College Station, College Station, 77845, Texas, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.