A Veterinary Pathologist with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine says the annual flu shot is the best way to help both pigs and people avoid the flu. The Western College of Veterinary Medicine has completed a summary of seasonal influenza over the past two years.
Dr. Susan Detmer, an Associate Professor in the Department of Veterinary Pathology with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, recommends getting the annual vaccine, especially if you work with pigs.
Clip-Dr. Susan Detmer-Western College of Veterinary Medicine:
It has the most recent updated pandemic H1N1 virus in that vaccine and that is a virus that we know can get into pigs and back into people. Both populations, human and pig, are highly susceptible to the pandemic H1N1 virus. If you get vaccinated it won't be 100 percent but I myself have gotten infected with the virus and it's a much lower shedding that I'll have, I'm recovering faster.
Influenza has a very typical infection process in people and it's the same in pigs. The first 24 to 48 hour of infection you may or may not notice anything. Usually the fever peaks 24 to 48 hours after infection then, once the fever passes, that's when you're shedding a lot less virus.
You usually shed the virus in the first three to five days of infection and you can shed the virus for seven to ten days after infected but, within two weeks, you stop shedding the virus and you're not able to transmit once you've stopped shedding the virus.
Source : Farmscape