Dr. Hamed Samaha, Chairman of the General Authority for Veterinary Services, has said that more than 2,000 pigs have been slaughtered and culled in El-Basateen slaughterhouse, while the total number of killed pigs has risen to more than 26,000. This is part of the preventive national campaign against swine flu. 131,652 pigs nationwide still have to be killed. Speaking to the press yesterday, Samaha said that the investigations carried out by the Authority technical committee unveiled the presence of 46 barns with 1,331 pigs in the Governorate of Giza, while 144 pigs were found and slaughtered yesterday. The Cabinet Disaster Committee held meetings yesterday to follow up on the slaughter of pigs nationwide. It also entrusted the governorates with speeding up the transport of pigs to the slaughterhouses approved by the Ministry of Agriculture, providing all the necessary facilities to control the transport of pigs to the abattoirs, rapidly informing the concerned bodies of the smuggling of pigs away from the control of veterinary services, and referring violations to investigative bodies.
The General Authority for Veterinary Services has decided to ban the import of pigs' intestine which are used to produce threads for surgical operations, as well as pigs' hairs, which are used to produce shaving and painting brushes. The ban will be in place until a scientific committee made up of experts from various universities and research centers is formed to make sure that no virus can be transmitted from infected pigs through any of these products. Meanwhile, official sources at the General Federation of Poultry Producers said they intended to submit an urgent note to Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza to call on him to put off the implementation of the law regulating the circulation of live birds for two years until new slaughterhouses were set up capable to accommodate the entire daily production of birds (more than two million a day).
Poultry producers called on the minister to submit their demands to the Cabinet, as the law regulating the circulation of live birds gives the Minister of Agriculture the right to define the places where the sale of live birds is allowed. They also pointed out that pressing ahead with the current embargo would lead to the collapse of the poultry industry, the investments of which are above LE 15 billion.
