Although the country hadn’t suffered any reported cases of swine flu, Egypt started to slaughter the approximate 300,000 to 350,000 pigs in the nation on April 29th for precautionary reasons. Egyptian Health Minister Hatem el-Gabaly told reporters that he met with President Hosni Mubarak and it was decided the pigs should immediately be taken to the country’s slaughterhouses.

 

The decision had farmers up in arms and they blocked streets and attacked Health Ministry workers’ trucks and bulldozers with rocks when they came to get the animals.

 

The slaughter shows how much panic the deadly flu has caused around globe, especially in poorer nations with weaker health systems. This isn’t the first time Egypt has reacted this way as in 2006 about 25 million chickens were slaughtered after a bird flu killed 25 people.

 

Health authorities killed and buried 250 pigs near Cairo, and the farmers demanded compensation. They were paid about 1,000 Egyptian pounds (roughly $17) per pig and the farmers responded by demanding a fairer market price. However, Agriculture MinisterAmin Abaza said since they are still allowed to sell the pork from the culled animals there is no need to compensate them further. (This is a contrast to the American panic of not eating pork for fear of contracting the virus that way, despite health authorities throughout the world stating that humans can’t be infected with the disease by eating pork products.)

 

The Swine flu, which as since been renamed to H1N1 flu in the US, to disassociate it from pigs and to keep it from hurting sales of pork, recently spread to Europe, Asia and Israel, which borders with Egypt.

 

Many experts believe the new strain of influenza is a combination of pig, bird, and human flu virus, which started with pigs, spread to humans, and is further spreading by human-to-human contact.

Most Muslims and Jews claim pigs are unclean and won’t eat their meat because of religious beliefs and an Islamic militant website stated that swine flu was God's revenge against "infidels."

  

On April 29th, the government in Jordan closed the country's five pig farms for violating public health safety regulations. Half of the 800 animals will be killed and the rest will be moved away from the population.

In Egypt, the pigs are mainly raised and eaten mainly by the Christian minority, which represents about 10 per cent of the country.

 

Global health experts stated that the mass slaughter of the Egyptian pigs is totally uncalled for as well as a waste of resources. U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization Chief Veterinary Officer JosephDomenech said the flu is human related and has nothing to do with pigs. However, Egypt points back to the bird flu that began in Asian poultry in 2003 and then spread to humans, killing over 250 worldwide.

 

According to the World Health Organization, Egypt suffered the fourth highest death toll during the bird flu, following Indonesia, Vietnam, and China, with many people still dying from the virus, which could account for the government's overzealous approach to the new pig borne threat.