A person unrelated to livestock has been infected with swine flu in Catalonia

The Department of Health of the Government of Catalonia has reported on Friday that a case of swine influenza A (H1N1) has been detected in Lleida.  The infected person is "fine" and has nothing to do with the livestock sector.

The Secretary of Public Health of the Generalitat, Esteve Fernández, has explained that this is thefourth case of  detected in the Spanish State since 2009.

This case, however, has no connectionwith the African plague\u00A0a0  because, in Fernandez's words, "it's another virus."

H1N1 is a virus that circulatesbetween pigs and can occasionally spread to humans, provided there is contact with the animal or space infected by that virus.

"This case, however, is unusual because the infected person has not had contact with the animals," said Jacobo Mendioroz, Deputy Director-General of the Public Health Emergency Services of the Generalitat.

However, a team of experts is conducting an assessment of the situation to try to determine the origin of the case.

Unusual case.

For the time being, all Mendioroz has said is that this is an "unusual case", since it has been found that it has not affected the health of the infected person or the people close to him, so it does not endanger public health.

This person has chronic illnesses, and the day he was detected, on January 30, he went to the hospital for other reasons that are not related to flu symptoms.  

They then made sure that this man had no contact with the animals and had no symptoms of the disease, so Mendioroz has said that perhaps he had traces of the virus in his body — he had not been infected — or had been infected with the virus during the sampling process for testing.