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As swine flu fears sweep the world, governments everywhere are taking steps to prepare for a global pandemic, such as ramping up disease surveillance, reinforcing medicine stockpiles, and distributing infection control information to citizens. Egypt, however, with no confirmed cases of swine flu within its borders, added another step: Killing all 300,000 of its pigs.

"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 said earlier this week, according to The Independent. The idea is to prevent the animals from passing the disease to humans.

But will such a move actually help? Not in the slightest, says Barbara Straw, a professor of large animal clinical science at Michigan State University's College of Veterinary Medicine in East Lansing: "It doesn't make any sense to kill pigs."

That's because there's no evidence that the flu strain that has caused illness in people in Mexico and 10 other countries is also infecting pigs, says Straw. And if the pigs don't harbor the virus, they cannot pass it to people, Straw adds.

But wait, isn't this swine flu, well, from swine? Actually, not really, says Arnon Shimshony, Israel's former chief veterinary officer. The reason swine flu has its name is that certain parts of its DNA resemble those found in flu viruses that commonly affect pigs, he explains. At some point in the virus's evolution, it probably passed through pigs, which could act like "mixing vessels" of human and avian flu viruses, Shimshony says. (This unusual susceptibility to flu viruses from other species is made possible by receptors on cells in the pig's respiratory tract, he says).

The virus may have a swine history, but it no longer affects swine, he says: "It has become a human problem, a pure human problem." So Shimshony doesn't think killing pigs makes any sense either. The only scenario in which pig-culling would be justified, Shimshony says, is if the particular strain causing the human epidemic began appearing in pigs.

All of this begs the question: Is "swine flu" a misnomer? Apparently the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Obama administration think so; both have begun referring to the virus as H1N1, partly out of fear that the appellation "swine flu" is harming the pork industry.

Still, we should note that there is precedent for influenza viruses to be capable of infecting two different species, although it's rare. A notable exception is avian flu, which can pass from birds to humans, so poultry culling, which has been ordered in Egypt, Hong Kong and other countries plagued by avian flu is prudent, MSU's Straw says. Egypt has had 67 cases of avian flu, 23 of them fatal, since 2006.

So if Egypt culls all these pigs, what happens to the pork? As we noted in our first post on swine flu, there is no evidence that eating bacon, pork chops, or other swine products can cause H1N1 infections, so it should be safe to eat. But assuming most of Egypt's Muslim majority is observant, only about 10 percent of the population—the Coptic Christian minority—is likely to eat it.

See our In-Depth Report for more on the swine flu outbreak.

Image of a piglet (from an unspecified country): be_khe via flickr

7 Comments

1. 1. Jim Lacey 01:46 PM 5/1/09

   Gross ignorance of science on the part of powerful individuals in Egypt will apparently result in the destruction of hundreds of thousands of pigs. Americans should not congratulate themselves for scientific awareness, however, since the majority of them accept the Young Earth theory and do not accept the theory of Evolution. Could there be an element of religious fervor to the Egyptian decision, pork being an abomination to Muslims?

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2. 2. Brian Jones in reply to Jim Lacey 08:54 PM 5/1/09

   Majority of Americans? Possibly. However, anecdotally I don't know a single person here that accepts Young Earth theory and not Evolution. It would seem that a source would be prudent.

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3. 3. Greybeard 01:31 AM 5/2/09

   Clearly the name should be changed to Mexican Flu. The Egyptians could then blow up every taco stand in Cairo - a much less harmful response.

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4. 4. Greybeard 01:33 AM 5/2/09

   And one for the fundamentalists - could this mark the beginning of the Aporkalypse?

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5. 5. Mahmoud Najm 02:34 AM 5/2/09

   Egypt has a population of about 8 millions of Christians; pigs represent a source of food for them. You know that we Muslims do not eat pork, it is our Christian brothers and sisters right to enjoy their food within their homeland but when it comes to matter of national security, everything changes. The government does not have a problem with pigs...the problem is with uncontrollable flu, the government will do whatever it takes to prevent such virus from spreading all over the nation.
   By the way, about the relation between swine and the flu...I've heard the same about bird flu, but it turned to be not correct.
   
   

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6. 6. cairoreader 02:59 AM 5/2/09

   Both pig farms and chicken farms were ordered to be relocated outside the city limits in Feb of 2006 when the avian flu first made its appearance in Egypt. This was not done. This is an opportunity to do so. Originally, the idea was to do so immediately with the appearance of "swine flu." There is a time element in place which cannot be met so the decision to kill the pigs was made. The meat will be sold. It should be noted by those reader who think that there is a religious backlash at work here, that this was passed unanimously in the Parliament which has Muslim and Copt members. The fear is in a country where avian flu is of such magnitude and that the avian flu can pass from animal to animal and then to person to person, that any potential vector should be controlled. Unwise or not, that is the rationale behind this decision.. The pig farms will be rebuilt in the future.

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7. 7. Kathleen 02:48 PM 5/2/09

   Now that breaks my heart. Could you have chosen a more innocent photo to display? This should not even be something that has to do with "pork". It has to do with mass destruction of other planetary inhabitants who are innocent and do not deserve to die. We are sadly mistaken to believe there are not universal repercussions to such senseless slaughter of animals who support humans in so many. This is how we repay? Every living thing has purpose and should be respected.

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