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From IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks), which was founded in 1995 and is part of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, we get updated on the fallout from the massive culling of pigs in Egypt last May.
For years, Egyptian Health officials had looked for an opportunity to eliminate pigs from their country. With the emergence of a new strain of swine flu, and concerns that pigs could be vectors, the decision was quickly reached to eradicate hundreds of thousands of swine.
The unintended consequence – beyond the hardship placed on pig farmers by the destruction of their herds – is that cities are now overrun with the garbage that the pigs used to eat.
EGYPT: Pig-cull induced street rubbish a “national scandal”
Photo: Amr Emam/IRINPiles of garbage being burned in Cairo's streets put residents in danger of contracting respiratory diseases
CAIRO, 26 January 2010 (IRIN) - The Egyptian government’s decision to cull all of the country’s 300,000 pigs in May 2009 is increasingly being viewed by experts and officials as a gross mistake as piles of organic waste the pigs once ate accumulate in Cairo’s streets, posing serious health hazards.
The month-long cull was ostensibly to stem the spread of H1N1 influenza, but the government later said it was simply a general health measure.
The cull hit the livelihoods of 70,000 former pig farmers and unofficial rubbish collectors and their families in the Cairo area, according to local NGO Association for the Protection of the Environment.
During a recent stormy session of parliament, Cairo Governor Abdelazeem Wazeer called the decision to cull the pigs a “mistake” and legislator Hamdy el-Sayed, chairman of the Doctors’ Association, called it a “national scandal”.
The decision to kill the pigs was wrong and hasty. There could’ve been better alternatives. The pigs could’ve been moved from their farms in the cities to the desert.
“Our streets are overcome by waste. This is catastrophic,” he said.
“The decision to kill the pigs was wrong and hasty,” Fahti Shabana, an Egyptian medical expert, told IRIN. “There could’ve been better alternatives. The pigs could’ve been moved from their farms in the cities to the desert.”
