Swine Flu - Egypt Begins Killing Pigs - UN Says Big Mistake

"It has been decided to slaughter all pigs in the country immediately," Minister of Health Hatem al-Gabali said on Wednesday afternoon. Link

On Tuesday, the Egyptian parliament voted to slaughter the country’s entire pig livestock of around 250,000 animals in a precautionary measure.

Al-Gabali was quoted by the official Middle East News Agency as saying that all pigs will be examined to make sure they did not carry the virus before they are killed.

An awareness campaign will be launched through the local media and a committee will be established to follow up the virus.

The minister said that production of face masks will be increased to 100 million compared to the 2007 rate of 30 million.

"We have communicated with the Ministry of Tourism since lastSaturday to give us a daily report on and watch closely all tourists, especially those coming from the countries that reported cases of the virus," said al-Gabali, adding that they also increased the number of doctors stationed at the borders.

The Government’s decision came a few hours after the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group, said in a symposium on the health scare on Wednesday that swine flu is "more serious than the hydrogen bomb."

The Brotherhood - which, although banned, is Egypt’s largest opposition bloc in parliament - voted for the cull, and said that the swine flu outbreak demonstrated the wisdom of the Islamic ban on pork.

"It is God’s grace in his Islamic Sharia to permit all that is good for us and to ban what is bad. We could understand the wisdom of the ban, or we could not understand it. But eventually time proves the truth of God’s words to us," Sheikh al-Sayed Askar said at a Muslim Brotherhood-sponsored symposium on the virus.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said it is safe to eat pig meat.

"Swine influenza has not been shown to be transmissible to people through eating properly handled and prepared pork (pig meat) or other products derived from pigs," the organisation said on its website.

Israel is the sole country in the region hit by the virus. It reported two cases of the disease on Wednesday. Both were tourists who had recently returned from Mexico.

Representatives of the World Health Organisation in Egypt on have stressed that the country was well-equipped to confront the virus because of its experience with the related avian flu virus.

Islam, the religion of 90 per cent of Egypt’s 80 million citizens, forbids eating the flesh of pigs. In Cairo, poor Christian garbage-collectors raise pigs on food waste.

Speaking at the forum, Mohammed Seif, a professor at the University of Beni Suef, some 150 kilometres south of Cairo, said he feared they could spread the virus.

"Garbage-collectors could multiply the spread of the virus because they raise pigs and enter most Egyptian homes," he said.

The WHO confirmed 114 cases of swine flu around the world with 13 cases in Canada, 26 in Mexico, including seven deaths and 64 in the US which include one death.

UN says Egypt pig cull real mistake

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Around 400,000 pigs are to be culled despite WHO advisories that well-cooked pig meat is safe [Reuters] The United Nations has called Egypt's move to cull 400,000 pigs as a precaution against swine flu "a real mistake". The Egyptian government ordered the slaughter of the pigs on Wednesday, saying it could help quell any panic in the country that is largely Muslim, who view pigs as unclean. No pigs in the country have been found with the new strain of H1N1 virus of the so-called swine flu and the World Health Organisation (WHO) says the disease cannot be caught from eating pork that is properly prepared. Joseph Domenech, the chief veterinary officer for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said the cull was "a real mistake". 'Real mistake' "There is no reason to do that. It's not a swine influenza, it's a human influenza," he said. The move to slaughter the pigs, kept mainly by the country's Christian minority, sparked an angry response from farmers, who said reported government pledges of compensation of $105 per animal were inadequate. Clashes were reported in Khanka, 25km north of Cairo, with pig farmers setting up road blocks and smashing the windscreens of veterinary services' vehicles as they sought to take people's pigs away. "Our pigs are healthy. They are our capital and they have no diseases," Adel Ishak, a rubbish collector from Manshiet Nasser, northeast of Cairo, told the AFP news agency. "How will they replace the capital if these pigs are killed?" Pork imports banned Swine flu: At a glance Deaths: Eight confirmed in Mexico and 159 more suspected. One death in the United States Countries with confirmed cases: Mexico, the US, Canada, New Zealand, Spain, Israel, Britain, Germany and Austria Countries with suspected cases: Australia, Brazil, France, Chile, Denmark, Switzerland, Colombia, Germany, Norway, South Korea, Guatemala Influenza epidemics: Annual influenza epidemics are thought to result in three to five million cases of severe illness and between 250,000 and 500,000 deaths around the world, WHO says. But Egypt's fears that a pandemic could have a devastating impact in a country where most of the country's estimated 80 million people live in the densely packed Nile Valley, is shared by several other countries, which have banned or restricted pork imports despite WHO's statement that eating pork is safe. Russia has banned meat imports from Mexico, as well as US states where cases have been confirmed, and banned raw pork from several other US states. China, the world's biggest pork consumer, has banned imports of live pigs and pork from Mexico and the US states of Texas, California and Kansas. Officials in the US and Europe have called for the disease to be given a different name to prevent consumers being put off eating pork, which could severely hurt the $25bn a year international trade in pork products, with the EU, US, Canada and Brazil the biggest exporters. WHO officials say the disease was given the name because it derives from a swine flu virus. Experts believe the H1N1 virus mutated from pig, bird and human viruses.