Save the pigs of Egypt

A “Massacre of the Innocents” once again

porky09 — Sun, 03 May 2009 21:41:59 +0000

Egypt’s government was hoping to look strong and proactive in the swine flu scare with its decision to slaughter all the country’s pigs, after taking heavy criticism at home for poor planning and corruption in past crises. Many accused the government of not taking precautions when bird flu first appeared in Asia in 2003. When the first case appeared in Egypt in 2006, the government carried out mass bird culls, but the disease has killed more than two dozen people since. A rockslide that crushed a Cairo neighborhood and killed at least 100, and a series of fires – including one that burned down the upper house of parliament – highlighted how ill-prepared emergency services are. A 2005 ferry sinking that killed 1,000 raised an uproar over poor safety conditions. The government likely felt confident slaughtering pigs would not spark any public backlash in predominantly Muslim Egypt, where the majority of the population does not eat pork. Still, the opposition Muslim Brotherhood was critical of the slaughter on the grounds it was not thought out. Coptic Christian leaders – including the Coptic pope – condoned the slaughter, and two Coptic lawmakers were among the most vocal supporters, likely to ensure that the Christian community is not blamed if a case does ever arise in Egypt. Pig farmers – overwhelmingly Christian – were angered. Government efforts to start the slaughter Wednesday were met with farmers who hurled stones at Health Ministry trucks. The government initially said it would not provide compensation for slaughtered pigs since the meat could be sold. But now it is proposing paying farmers $180 for each pig – a step that would cost the government an estimated $54 million.

Swine flu ‘more serious than hydrogen bomb’: Muslim Brotherhood

porky09 — Fri, 01 May 2009 21:05:19 +0000

Swine flu is “more serious than the hydrogen bomb,” the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group, said in a symposium on the health scare on Wednesday. No cases of swine flu have yet been reported in Egypt, although the Cairo parliament on Tuesday voted to slaughter the country’s entire pig livestock of around 250,000 animals in a precautionary measure.

The Muslim Brotherhood – which although banned is Egypt’s largest opposition bloc in parliament – voted for the cull, and said Wednesday 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 Wednesday.

The World Health Organisation 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.

Although no cases of the swine flu have been reported in Egypt, neighbouring Israel on Wednesday reported its second case of the disease.

Both were tourists who had recently returned from Mexico, where the government on Wednesday said it could only confirm seven deaths from the virus, down from 20.

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 vast majority of confirmed swine flu cases have been in North America, but Britain, Spain and Germany have also confirmed two cases each.

Egyptian Christians riot after swine flu cull

porky09 — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:49:24 +0000

Egyptian leaders ordered the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of pigs today to help protect against swine flu, prompting angry protests from the poor Christian farmers who feed their animals with a country’s food scraps. The decision was also criticised as a “real mistake” by a senior UN food expert.

The Arab world’s most populous nation has been been badly hit by the H5N1 bird flu virus in recent years and the move to cull up to 400,000 pigs – seen by Muslims as unclean animals – was designed to calm fears of an impending pandemic.

But it left Egypt’s large Coptic Christian minority up in arms, especially the slum-dwelling “Zebaleen” rubbish collectors who rely on the hogs for their livelihood. Scores of them blocked the streets and stoned the vehicles of Health Ministry workers as they arrived to carry out the government’s order at pig farms on the outskirts of Cario this afternoon.

“Our pigs are healthy. They are our capital and they have no diseases,” said Adel Ishak, who feeds his pigs from the rubbish he collects in Manshiet Nasser, northeast of Cairo.

Egipto ordena sacrificar a los cerdos y Sanidad recomienda llamar al virus de la gripe porcina “nueva gripe”

porky09 — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:38:07 +0000

El virus H1N1 o gripe porcina, es una enfermedad respiratoria que afecta a los cerdos, causada por un virus que tiene una notable facilidad para transmitirse de persona a persona. Paradójicamente, el virus no se ha detectado en estos animales, según ha indicado el ministerio de Sanidad.

MÁS INFORMACIÓN

El Gobierno de Egipto, temeroso de las nefastas consecuencias que comportó al país la gripe aviar, ha ordenado el sacrificio de “toda la cabaña porcina” del país como medida de precaución, según anunció el ministro de Sanidad, Hatem el Gabali. “Se ha decidido sacrificar toda la cabaña porcina existente en Egipto, lo cual comenzará hoy”, declaró El Gabali en un comunicado difundido por la agencia estatal de noticias

MENA.http://www.lavanguardia.es/ciudadanos/noticias/20090429/53692783591/egipto-ordena-sacrificar-a-los-cerdos-y-sanidad-recomienda-llamar-al-virus-de-la-gripe-porcina-nueva.html

Save the egyptian pigs

porky09 — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:06:52 +0000

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