Vol. 73/No. 19      May 18, 2009

Around 1,000 pig farmers in Cairo protested May 3 against the government’s plan to kill the country’s 300,000 pigs. The protests were met with some 200 police firing tear gas and riot bullets, injuring 12 people.

There are no reported cases of swine flu in Egypt. The World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out the slaughter is unnecessary since the disease is spread by humans, not pigs.

The pig farmers are mostly members of Christian minorities who work as garbage collectors and raise pigs off the rubbish they collect. There are 65,000 pigs in Manichiet Nasser, a Cairo neighborhood of 55,000 residents where the demonstration took place.

Isaac Mikhail, head of the garbage collectors association, told the Associated Press that the government recently slaughtered 600 pigs and compensated the farmers at about half the market rate of about 55 cents a pound.

According to the May 4 Financial Times, the Mexican government said that out of the original estimate of 176 deaths only 19 have been confirmed as swine flu related, a figure later updated to 29 by the Mexican Health Department. The government announced May 4 that it would allow most businesses to reopen after many were ordered shut three days earlier.

A 2003 Centers for Disease Control study estimates that an average of 36,000 people in the United States die of seasonal influenza every year. So far there are two confirmed U.S. deaths from swine flu this year.

The Chinese government quarantined some 70 Mexican travelers, although only one of them was known to be sick. The Wall Street Journal reports that Mexican travelers arriving on various flights from Mexico and the United States were singled out by Chinese health officials who boarded aircraft and took away passengers holding Mexican passports.

British Airways is handing out masks to Mexico-bound passengers, while Lufthansa will carry doctors on each flight to Mexico. Continental, United, and US Airways announced May 1 that they would significantly reduce flights to and from Mexico because of swine flu.

The Canadian tour operator Transat announced April 29 that it will cancel all its flights to Mexico until the end of June and will bring all its customers and personnel currently there back to Canada. Alaska Airlines is taking away all of the pillows, claiming this will minimize the chances of contamination.

Margaret Chan, director-general of WHO, told the Wall Street Journal that “we can not overreact and we cannot be complacent either. We haven’t seen the full spectrum of the disease.”

Chan did not say when WHO might raise its “influenza pandemic alert” level from phase 5 to phase 6. “The agency declares a pandemic when community outbreaks are occurring in two countries in one region and at least one country in another region,” the Journal reported.

Meanwhile, the Cuban government continues to calmly take preventive measures against the virus, activating the National Civil Defense command structure in preparation for any potential threat. The National Civil Defense leads a coordinated mobilization of the population to respond to emergencies such as hurricanes. Steps to ensure speedy detection and diagnosis are in place.

In a discussion on “The Roundtable,” a Cuban television show, Luis Estruch, deputy minister of public health for hygiene, epidemiology, and microbiology, responded to the question of whether Cuba would prohibit large crowds from gathering or close schools, as has been done in other countries.

“No,” Estruch said. “I would say that we may all parade this May Day … there is nothing to keep us Cubans from having our events celebrating this great commemoration for workers, and join all our forces together with the Revolution.

“We are very strong as a nation because of our social system and the unwavering political will of health being a top-priority task. The life of a human being is more important than any riches. And that has made it possible for the country to have strength in the development of its health system, in the organization of its people and in the stability of public health.”  
 
 
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