The Egyptian government has over-reacted to the developing flu pandemic by destroying the livelihoods of Egyptian Christians.
Egyptian leaders ordered the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of pigs today to help protect against swine flu, prompting angry protests from the poor Christan 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.
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The World Health Organisation has repeatedly said, however, that the newly mutated H1N1 virus is not found in pigs – although the animals can be the vessels for the “genetic reassortment” that produces new strains – and that pork meat is safe to eat.Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary office with the UN Food and Agriculture Officer in Rome, said the Egyptian order was “a real mistake”.
“There is no reason to do that. It’s not a swine influenza, it’s a human influenza,” he said.
