The Egyptian response to the Swine Flu outbreak has been to order the literal extermination of ALL, yes every last one, of the pigs in Egypt.  That seems vaguely Old Testament and the tone of all of the media reports on this action is one of bemused condescension.  “Oh, those poor ignorant Egyptians…” the reports from the BBC, the New York Times, and other normally insightful news sources seem to chuckle, “…they just don’t realize that this version of the swine flu is so dangerous precisely because you can’t catch it from pigs”.

But the Egyptians aren’t stupid and they realize the epidemiological characteristics of the flu.  They aren’t slaughtering the pigs to keep people from catching Swine Flu; they are slaughtering pigs to keep Muslims from slaughtering Christians.

Egypt is of course about ninety percent Muslim with a Coptic Christian minority making up about ten percent of the population and they’re the ones that raise the hogs.  What the Egyptian government is concerned about is that when Egyptians begin to get sick and die, and if this variety is half as virulent as it appears they will eventually, the government does not want the Muslim Brotherhood to have an excuse to incite riots against the Coptic minority.

There is always a certain amount of tension and as recently as 2000 there were direct attacks on the Coptic community that led to the death of 21 men and the Egyptian government is trying to avoid any replay of that event or something possibly worse.   

So, bully for the Egyptians.  This is a wise decision for everyone, except those poor innocent pigs.