Egyptian government’s ‘pandemic’ handling skills

Ha’aretz:

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

(…)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..

So thanks to the forward thinking of the Mubarak government, if ‘Swine Flu’ virus is ever directly transmitted from eating pork, the Egyptian people will be prepared and spared…although the mission did have its critics and objectors...

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

One might even be tempted to call the farmers…pigheaded.