EDMONTON — CBC News says it has obtained a report indicating federal inspectors did not take proper precautions or have the right equipment while investigating a swine-flu outbreak on a central Alberta pig farm.
The internal report by Alberta Health Services says two workers for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency subsequently got sick with the H1N1 virus.
Dr. Jim Clark, national manager for the agency’s disease control section, acknowledges that in this case, the proper protocols and procedures were not fully observed.
The inspectors spent two hours on April 28 taking nasal and blood samples from pigs on a farm near Rocky Mountain House.
The report says their respirators didn’t fit properly and kept fogging up, and the investigators hadn’t been taught how to best put on or remove their coveralls, shoe covers, gloves and respirators.
The report says the inspectors admitted they lifted their respirators while inside the barn to let the sweat drip down, and that the next day they started getting sick.