Kill the Pigs!

Although all the announcements and FAQs I've seen indicate that despite its name, the swine flu is not being spread by pigs, Egypt seems bent on killing all its pigs in order to stave off the disease. (There have been no reported cases in Egypt yet.)

My favorite line in this report just cited: "Helwan province has decided to "temporary" execute the pigs till the disease is combated." I know, the English isn't great, but the Arabic says the same thing, basically. Temporary execution is a novel concept. I wonder how they do it. I'm guessing it's a temporary measure, and not at all temporary from the pigs' point of view.

The photo accompanying the story (left) shows a member of the People's Assembly wearing a surgical mask in Parliament. I suspect Egyptians will write their own jokes on that one, and they'll probably be better than what I could come up with.

An additional thought: Egypt has had several outbreaks of bird flu in recent years, but I don't recall a campaign to kill all the birds in the country.

Despite all this publicity in Egypt, so far as I have heard, the only country in the Middle East with confirmed cases so far is Israel, casting a bit of a pall over their 61st Independence Day celebrations.