it’s a little bit late to change the name now

While health workers in Mexico battle with the swine influenza virus and desperately try to control its spread another battle is going on about what to call it! Farmers especially those in America have been objecting vehemently to the virus being associated with pigs because not only will it destroy their businesses but they said that it hadn't been located in any animals yet. In fact the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) claims that it was completely unjustified to associate this virus with swine and also with Mexico because one strain of this influenza virus is American and another strain is likely to be Asian.

In an effort to protect the American pig farming industry, the U.S. Agriculture Secretary said that people must not refer to the influenza virus as the swine flu especially as eating pork will not have any effect on getting this illness.

In Israel one political party said that they have decided to call the flu ‘Mexican influenza’ because of religious concerns regarding the use of the word swine. Both Jews and Arabs are forbidden by their religion to eat pork because it is said to be unclean. The idea of getting a virus transmitted from a pig would be very upsetting for a Jew or an Arab.

The European Union has decided to complicate matters even more by calling it the ‘novel flu virus’ in order to protect the farming industry however the World Health Organization which leads the way on these matters is still referring to it as “swine flu”.

The truth is it’s a little bit late to change the name now because news agencies around the world are still calling it the swine flu and they have a much bigger impact on naming something then pig farmers do.

In the United States the amount of confirmed infections is close to 100 now with 50 cases in New York.