‘Don’t blame the pigs’

WHAT to call the new strain of flu raising alarms around the world has taken on political, economic, and diplomatic overtones, the Boston Globe reports.

Pork producers question whether the term ‘swine flu’ is appropriate. Government officials in Thailand, one of the world’s largest meat exporters, have started referring to the disease as ‘Mexican flu’.The World Organisation for Animal Health, which handles veterinary issues around the world, issued a statement on Monday suggesting that the new disease should be labelled ‘North American influenza’, in keeping with a long medical tradition of naming influenza pandemics for the regions where they were first identified. The debate is likely to continue as scientists and health authorities try to trace the disease.The flu strain hasn’t been observed in pigs and appears to advance through human-to-human transmission, Bernard Vallat, the head of the World Organisation for Animal Health, said in an interview yesterday.The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation says there is no evidence the influenza strain has entered the human population directly from pigs.The World Organisation for Animal Health, a Paris-based intergovernmental group with 174 member countries, says there is no sign the virus is able to circulate in animals, and suggests the strain be renamed ‘North-American influenza’.’We have not seen any transmission from pigs,’ said Hartl of the WHO. ‘There is no danger from eating pork. All transmissions so far have been human-to-human transmission.’Pork is safe to eat and direct contact with pigs isn’t the source of the hybrid influenza, the US National Pork Producers Council said in a statement yesterday.- Boston Globe and The New York Times