This could be an outbreak of a new Swine Flu strain, with the health officials announcing second case of swine-flu striking in Pennsylvania followed by Indiana case.

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the new virus contains parts of rare swine flu viruses called H3N2, along with a gene from the H1N1 swine flu, the same virus that caused a global pandemic two years ago.

In both the recently reported cases, the victims are young children aged 2 and 5, and had direct or indirect contact with pigs prior to becoming sick. Also, they recovered fast since they already had received seasonal flu vaccination last year, which resisted H1N1.

As of Friday, no other cases or human to human transmission were reported.

At this time, with only one case of this kind identified in Pennsylvania, we cannot yet say there is a significant risk to public health. However, it is something that we are taking very seriously and actively investigating, phillyburbs.com quoted Pennsylvania Department of Health Secretary Dr. Eli Avila as saying.

An advisory was issued by The Pennsylvania Department of Health on Friday in order for the public to take precautionary measures against the spread of respiratory viruses in the wake of the current investigation in to swine flu. Public health officials are also asked to watch patients with flu-like symptoms closely. And they have also been asked to inform and forward samples to the state in case of positive tests for Type-A virus.

The symptoms in case of 2-year-old Schuylkill County girl were high fever, dry cough and lethargy. She tested positive for Type-A flu at a local hospital, but was not admitted. The same symptoms and test results were also found in case of the Indiana boy in July. The boy, who has chronic health conditions, reportedly did not have direct exposure to pigs, but one of his caretakers did before the boy became ill, phillyburbs.com reported.

Pennsylvania Swine flu Medicine Influenza A virus