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Egypt's call to kill pigs amid flu scare ridiculed

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-01 19:12

CAIRO -- 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.

An Egyptian boy, whose family own pigs, helps workers to collect pigs at the main slaughterhouse in Cairo April 30, 2009. Egypt started seizing and slaughtering pig herds on Thursday as a precaution against swine flu despite resistance by farmers and criticism from the United Nations, officials and farmers said. [Agencies]

But instead, some Egyptians called the move a knee-jerk overreaction that even the World Health Organization said was unnecessary.

Full coverage:  Swine Flu Outbreak Related readings:  Egypt orders slaughter of all pigs over swine flu  WHO to drop term 'swine flu' to protect pigs  Pork consumers mixed as swine flu spreads

Egypt, which has no swine flu cases, is the only country in the world to order a mass pig slaughter in response to the disease. The move mirrored Egypt's battle with bird flu, in which the government killed 25 million birds within weeks in 2006.

But international health officials said the swine flu virus that has caused worldwide fear is not transmitted by pigs, and that pig slaughters do nothing to stop its spread. The WHO on Thursday stopped using the term "swine flu" to avoid confusion.

In Egypt, even the editor of a pro-government newspaper criticized the order to slaughter the estimated 300,000 pigs, which was pushed by parliament and issued by the government.

"Killing (pigs) is not a solution, otherwise, we should kill the people, because the virus spreads through them," wrote Abdullah Kamal of the daily Rose El-Youssef. "The terrified members of parliament should have concentrated on asking the government first about the preventive measures and ways of confronting the problem."

The Egyptian government has come under criticism in past years for being caught flat-footed by crises.

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.

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