From ProMed:

Egypt began slaughtering the roughly 300,000 pigs in the country Wednesday [29 Apr 2009] as a precautionary measure against the spread of swine flu, even though no cases have been reported here yet, the Health Ministry said.

The move immediately provoked resistance from pig farmers. At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, farmers refused to cooperate with Health Ministry workers who came to slaughter the animals, and the workers left without carrying out the government order.

“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 told reporters after a Cabinet meeting with President Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt’s overwhelmingly Muslim population does not eat pork due to religious restrictions. But the animals are raised and consumed by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population.

Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman estimated there were between 300,000-350,000 pigs in Egypt.

Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza told reporters that farmers would be allowed to sell the pork meat, so there would be no need for compensation.

In 2008, following fears over diseases spread by animals, Mubarak ordered all pig and chicken farms moved out of population areas. But the order was never implemented.

Pigs can be found in many places around the Muslim world, often raised by religious minorities who can eat pork. But they are banned entirely in some Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Libya.

In Jordan, the government decided Wednesday [29 Apr 2009] to shut down the country’s 5 pig farms, involving 800 animals, for violating public health safety regulations.

[The decision of the Egyptian authorities to cull the country's entire pig population, apparently as a prevention measure of the so-called "swine flu" A (H1N1) influenza in humans, is highly exceptional and rather controversial. It will be interesting to obtain information about the logic and arguments behind such an extreme decision. Has it been influenced by the accumulated Egyptian experience in handling H5N1 avian influenza, which has caused already 68 confirmed human cases (and 25 fatalities) there, Egypt becoming the world's 3rd most affected country (following Indonesia and Viet Nam)? Are there any data on the role played by backyard pigs in the epidemiology of avian influenza in Egypt that we are not aware of?

The authors report that they found H5N1 infections in pigs in Indonesia in 2005, 2006, and 2007. They determined that the swine viruses were closely related to viruses in chickens found nearby, indicating H5N1 spread from chickens to pigs at least 3 different times. Subscribers are referred to further details and to Moderator CP's commentary at the said posting. — Moderator AS]