Egypt orders slaughter of all pigs over swine flu

Source: Associated Press



By MAAMOUN YOUSSEF, Associated Press Writer – Wed Apr 29, 9:18 am ET

CAIRO – Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu even though no cases have been reported here yet, the Health Ministry said.

The move immediately provoked resistance from pig farmers. At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, farmers refused to cooperate with Health Ministry workers who came to slaughter the animals and the workers left without carrying out the government order.

"It has been decided to immediately start slaughtering all the pigs in Egypt using the full capacity of the country's slaughterhouses," Health Minister Hatem el-Gabaly told reporters after a Cabinet meeting with President Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt's overwhelmingly Muslim population does not eat pork due to religious restrictions. But the animals are raised and consumed by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population.




Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090429/ap_on_he_me/ml_egypt_swine_flu

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Would that help anything? Seems to me it's locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen.

nt

They hate pigs anyway.

Brain dead__________(insert Epithet here)

The label for this virus is promoting some confusion about that.

Maybe the government just doesn't like pigs because Muslims don't eat them?

was this post on the emerging infectious disease listserve for Infect. Dis. Physicians worldwide
Date: Tue 28 Apr 2009
From: Raul Rabadan
<rabadan@dbmi.columbia.edu>


In relation to the questions posed by Prof. Morris (H1N1) "swine flu": worldwide (03) archived as 20090428.1600]: My
group and I are analyzing the recent sequences from the isolates in
Texas and California of swine H1N1 deposited in National Center for
Biotechnology Information (NCBI) (A/California/ 04/2009(H1N1),
A/California/05/2009(H1N1), A/California/ 06/2009(H1N1),
A/California/07/2009(H1N1), A/California/ 09/2009(H1N1),
A/Texas/04/2009(H1N1) and A/Texas/05/2009(H1N1).

The preliminary analysis using all the sequences in public databases
(NCBI) suggests that all segments are of swine origin. NA and MP seem
related to Asian/European swine and the rest to North American swine
(H1N2 and H3N2 swine viruses isolated since 1998). There is also
interesting substratification between these groups, suggesting a
multiple reassortment.

We are puzzled about sources of information that affirm that the
virus is a reassortment of avian, human and swine viruses. It is true
that the H3N2 swine virus from 1998 and 1999 is a triple reassortant,
but all the related isolates are found since then in swine.

--
Raul Rabadan, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Biomedical Informatics
Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
1130 St. Nicholas Ave
ICRC Bldg 8th Floor, Office 803B
New York, NY 10032
<rabadan@dbmi.columbia.edu>

Morris's query in the ProMED-mail post titled "Influenza A (H1N1)
"swine flu": worldwide (03), archived as 20090428.1600 requesting
information on the nature of the genome of the virus responsible for
the outbreak in Mexico and beyond. The analysis of Dr. Rabadan and
colleagues is surprising in view of previous statements which have
gained currency that the genome of this virus is comprised of
components derived directly from avian, human and swine sources. We
look forward to seeing a detailed account of this new analysis. -
Mod.CP]

here: http://www.promedmail.org/pls/otn/f?p=2400:1001:4236182472951842::NO::F2400_P1001_BACK_PAGE,F2400_P1001_PUB_MAIL_ID:1010,77250

pig virus with no connection to birds.

Pigs, by virtue of their unique molecular-level immune system characteristics, are perfect "mixing vats" for influenza viruses. I believe it is because they have cell receptors for swine flu virus AND avian flu virus AND human flu virus. This allows them to become infected simultaneously with all of them. The virus are happy to exchange genetic material with each other once they are all commingling inside a pig.

So this disease almost certainly arose in a swine "mixing vat", but that only took a single, solitary pig. And now that the deal has been done, pigs are not necessary for the virus to whiz throughout the world.

but they have had an uptick of H5N1 since the beginning of the year. Perhaps that is the underlying reason?

These Egyptian officials have shit for brains!

in A PIG, but it is now in humans and spreading from human-to-human. No pigs are necessary for the threat to continue.

STOOPID PEOPLE PISS ME OFF.

they got a golden opportunity to get at the Christians, they use it.

It's not stupidity, it's not panic. It's simply some bureaucrat in power not letting a crisis go to waste, levering the concern to implement something he'd like to have done before or catering to an important constituency.

It is intolerance, but that's a given and not at all something surprising.

Somewhere in there there's something funny, but I haven't had any coffee yet.

when Coptics paid to keep their faith

All too often they escape unharmed.

looks like they are following the lead of some americans, and heck... even some people on DU...

idiotic response to an idiotic panic over something idiotic.


this flu thing has really brought out the morons.


weza alls gon' die!

waving the "we all are going to die" meme are people who seem to not want to have a discussion on the ongoing current event of a possible emerging pandemic. Everyone else seems to want an update on the latest news and a rational discussion of same. I can't understand why, if they do not want to discuss it rationally they don't just stay out of the threads.

I posted the following to a similar thread...

I agree that this is an extreme reaction.

Edited on Wed Apr-29-09 10:32 AM by FedUpWithIt All
I understand WHY they are having an extreme reaction though.

They have been pretty ground zero for the H5N1 virus. The way the have been fighting to keep that flu in check is by killing all infected birds.

We KNOW that swine can be mixing vessels and Egypt has been really battling avian flu this month. I suspect they are VERY concerned about both viruses finding each other. :scared: It is a reasonable fear considering...

There have been 67 cases of avian flu in Egypt since 2006. There have been 25 deaths.

12 of those cases have only been announced by WHO since early March. Of those 12 cases, at least 3 have died in a single week (as of April 24).

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE53K5T...

http://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/country/egy/en /

Religious insanity is never pretty.

what they are doing might be beneficial. Or how about the Al Qaeda flu?

I loved your point, just thought I would have fun to take it a little further.

We've been having a pandemic for about 5000 years. I think it's time for a cure.

It is like putting leather around the whole earth instead of putting leather on your own feet. People transmit the virus too, are they going to slaughter all the people next? Good grief.

the pig slaughter is just a dry run.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think it's pretty pointless.

Sounds like something he'd do.

why do people find it so easy to kill animals for no reason?

But I hope they're not just going to incinerate them or something, but at minimum to provide them to hungry people?

The dead pigs cannot transmit the flu, even if they carried it, by ingesting the flesh, right? It's a resperatory transmission.

BBQ ribs
:9

They can test herds for this. This is just simply cruel to kill all the pigs in the country.

I'm now waiting for the rumor to spread that one can get the flu by eating any pork product. It won't matter how many times it's debunked or by whom -- if it catches on, this could destroy the pork industry.

That said...I do hope that somehow this sheds some light on the factory farms, which is what people are implying the Smithfield farm is in Mexico. Factory farms are also asinine and cruel.

I hope they freeze these slaughtered hogs and send them to a starving nation, the people will be more than happy to eat them, as they said that it's safe to eat pork. Please send the pork to a starving nation, if it is proven that one cannot get this from eating pork, it would be such a waste if they didn't.

to get rid of pork, something the Jews don't like anyway.