CAIRO: Clashes broke out in the wake of the government's decision to slaughter some 300,000 pigs over fear of the spread of swine flu. Pig farmers have reacted angrily to the decision, which has also garnered criticism from the World Health Organization (WHO) as being wholly unnecessary. Egypt had decided to immediately cull all the pigs in the country on Wednesday, but as health services attempted to carry out the order, pig farmers set up roadblocks to prevent their entry at Al-Khanka, north of Cairo. Stones were thrown at the government vehicles who withdrew without culling any pigs. At a pig farm in Oseem on the outskirts of Cairo, workers at the farm run by the Morkos pork butcher chain expressed their anger over the decision. "I'm 80 years old, how am I supposed to earn my living anymore, should I steal or beg for my livelihood? Labib Ghali told Daily News Egypt. The decision to cull the pigs led the WHO to announce last Thursday that they would no longer refer to the new influenza strain as 'swine flu,' fearing that it had been misleading on the nature of the disease. "Rather than calling this swine flu ... we're going to stick with the technical scientific name H1N1 influenza A, said WHO spokesman Dick Thompson. Also on Thursday, the World Organization for Animal Health indicated that "there is no evidence of infection in pigs, nor of humans acquiring infection directly from pigs. For all the workers on the farm, rearing pigs was the only job they had ever known. They expressed their anger over the decision which they feel had been taken in haste, and they pointed out that authorities should have tested their pigs for the virus before taking such steps Earning some LE 20-22 a day, the workers pointed out that they feed their pigs potatoes and bread, and not rubbish like the pigs reared by the zabaleen (garbage collectors) community. The farm workers also pointed out that when the animals are slaughtered, they are tested by the Ministry of Health which does spot checks on the butcher shops that sell the pork as well. Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza said last week that farmers would be allowed to sell the pork meat so there would be no need for compensation, though in some cases there have been reports that farmers had been compensated to the tune of LE 1,000 per head. By Friday, the number of confirmed cases of swine flu reached 331 worldwide according to the WHO. There have been 12 reported deaths in Mexico and one in the United States. The organization raised its global alert level to Phase 5 on Wednesday, one short of a global pandemic. -Additional reporting by Jon Jensen. Go to Page 2 for a summary of blog discussions on Egypt's pig slaughter.
