Like most viruses, it enters the body through the mucous membranes - the eyes, the nose or the mouth. Swine flu is spread just like the regular seasonal flu spreads. It goes from person to person through close contact and direct touch, indirect touch, or respiratory droplets carrying the virus from person to person or from person to environmental surfaces through coughs and sneezes. If you touch where a person with swine flu touches, you will most likely pick up the virus and get the swine flu. That is how it spreads indirectly. Stay a minimum of six feet away from someone with a known infection, avoid close contact from crowded places.
You get direct spreading when you have skin to skin contact or direct person to person contact with an infected individual, such as shaking hands, kissing, or caring for a child or other infected person with hands-on care. You could be infected by getting too close to someone who has it. Do not hug people who have the swine flu. Wait for them to recover, then hug them.
Do not share drinking glasses or eating utensils with someone, this can also spread the disease. There is some evidence to suggest that it can be spread through gastrointestinal means, such as saliva, emesis (vomit), and feces (stool). The importance of hand washing before and after eating, using the restroom, or providing personal care to an infected individual must be stressed. Teach your family proper hand washing technique. (See related question for this information).
Flu viruses can also be spread by handling money. See the related question below.
Swine flu is not spread by eating pork. Flu viruses are inactivated ("killed") by heating to temperatures of 167-212°F [75-100°C].
Swine flu has not been shown to be spread by drinking tap water that has been provided by a local municipality (regular drinking water).
Swine flu is not spread through swimming in chlorinated pools, or by being in the water at recreational water parks that regularly treat the water. It is not spread in fountains that use purified water or spas. There is some risk of catching it at beaches, or at recreational water theme parks from people among the crowds and not in the treated water, just as in any other crowded public place.
Protect yourself and others by getting your flu vaccination, it is the
most important and
most effective way to stay well and to avoid spreading the flu to your family, coworkers, and in public. It has been proven to be safe and effective during the 2009 flu season, and since it is made exactly like the flu vaccines in prior years, it has been proven safe and effective over
decades of use.
Another very important method of prevention is proper and frequent hand washing and regular hygiene. To help prevent swine flu, wash your hands frequently with soap and water, and avoid touching your face, eyes, nose, and mouth. When you have the virus on your hands and touch the tissues in those places, that is how the virus enters your body.
See the related question below for additional information about protecting yourself from contracting this and other viruses. The
most important protection is basic hand washing and hygiene as described in the related question below. If no warm water and soap is available for hand washing, the hand sanitizers with at least 60% alcohol content can be used (or even plain rubbing alcohol).
There are still studies in progress to determine the best answer to this question. The most conservative suggestion from studies by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), on how long a person remains contagious, seem to back up the initially reported CDC guidelines that
one should be suspected to be capable of still spreading the Novel Swine Flu for one full week after the symptoms start or until 24 hours after the fever subsides [while taking no fever reducers] whichever is longer.
However, the most recent CDC guidelines indicate that
waiting for 24 hours after fever subsides without taking fever reducers is long enough.
According to the 9/19/09 DHS report:
Swine flu also appears to be contagious longer than ordinary seasonal flu, several experts said.
When the coughing stops is probably a better sign of when a swine flu patient is no longer contagious, experts said after seeing new research that suggests the virus can still spread many days after a fever goes away.
Using a very sensitive test to detect virus in the nose or throat, [the study] found that 80 percent had it five days after symptoms began, and 40 percent seven days after. Some still harbored virus as long as 16 days later. How soon they started on antiviral medicines such as Tamiflu made a difference in how much virus was found, but not whether virus was present at all. . .
Doctors know that people can spread ordinary seasonal flu for a couple of days before and after symptoms start by studying virus that patients shed in mucus. The first such studies of swine flu are just coming out now, and they imply a longer contagious period for the novel bug.
Everywhere. It has infected people in every country of the world.
This pandemic virus from 2009 (A-H1N1/09) spread faster than any other flu in the past and to every country in the world. It is now (Oct 2010) in the "Post Pandemic Phase" but it continues to be active in small outbreaks in some countries.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has developed an interactive map showing the time line and progression of the spread of the Novel H1N1 across the world during the early phases of the pandemic. A link is provided to the map in the related links section below, a flash player is needed to view the map.
The following answer is about the strain of H1N1 influenza that pigs get that is not the same as A-H1N1/09 pandemic flu:
Swine Flu can be transmitted from a pig to a human, like the human flu passes to humans. For example, if a human touches the pig or something a pig that has swine flu sneezes or coughs on, and then touches his face, mouth, nose or eyes before washing his hands, that farmer could then get the swine flu that pigs get. It is rare, but it does happen every year, mainly to pig farmers.
For more information about how the Pandemic Swine Flu A-H1N1/09 is spread, see the related questions below, links below, and browse the H1N1 Pandemic Swine Flu category for answers to hundreds of questions and answers. For encyclopedic reference material about the flu, see the Answers.com Reference Library by clicking for references in the green bar at the top of WikiAnswers pages.
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