Interestingly, Egypt has decided to slaughter all swine in the country as a response to the current H1N1 flu outbreak. Although no cases have been identified in Egypt, I'm guessing the government, who has tried several times before to eliminate swine from the country, is using the outbreak as an excuse to make a jab at the Christians in the country, who are the only ones who consume pork and therefore the only ones who raise pigs.
Egypt orders slaughter of all pigs over swine flu
by: Maamoun Youssef
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.
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.
"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.
Egypt's overwhelmingly Muslim population does not eat pork due to religious restrictions. But the animals are raised and consumed by the Christian minority, which some estimates put at 10 percent of the population.
Health Ministry spokesman Abdel Rahman estimated there were between 300,000-350,000 pigs in Egypt.
Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza told reporters that farmers would be allowed to sell the pork meat so there would be no need for compensation.
In 2008, following fears over diseases spread by animals, Mubarak ordered all pig and chicken farms moved out of population areas. But the order was never implemented.
Pigs can be found in many places around Muslim world, often raised by religious minorities who can eat pork. But they are banned entirely in some Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Libya.
In Jordan, the government decided Wednesday to shut down the country's five pig farms, involving 800 animals, for violating public health safety regulations.
29 April 2009
Egypt slaughers pigs
27 April 2009
Home sweet home
I guess it's about time I post some pictures of my new place! It's a two-bedroom flat on the ground floor of a building on a quiet street. I have my own entrance from the street with a little terrace area that I want to decorate with some outdoor furniture and plants.
I tried to take pictures on the night I arrived with all of my stuff, so I'm including the "before" pictures from that night with "after" pictures of how the place looks now. I guess they're not true "after" pictures since I still have plans to do a few things to the place, but they're "after-removing-all-the-Egyptian-decorations-that-came-with-the-place-and-unpacking-a-few-of-my-own-things" pictures.
When you enter the front door, you walk straight into the dining room. In fact, the flat's pretty small, so the door won't even open all the way because of the table, but it's not an issue.
"After" picture of the dining area across from the table
Straight in front of the dining area through a large, open doorway is the living room.
Another "before" picture of the living room
And the "after" living room
And the "after" living room
To the left, between the dining area and living room, there's a small hallway to the bedroom, bathroom and kitchen. My washing machine actually sits in the middle of the hallway.
"After" picture of the hallway
The kitchen is to the right of the washing machine. As I mentioned before, they've started doing some work on the plaster walls but haven't been able to finish yet. Within a couple weeks, though, the walls should look good as new.
"After" kitchen
Another "after" shot of the kitchen
And one shot of the refrigerator
To the left of the kitchen (and the left of the washing machine in the hallway) is the bathroom.
"After" bathroom
And the shower
And the sink
Finally, to the left of the bedroom, is my bedroom.
"Before" shot looking back toward the hallway
After moving some furniture and adding my own bedding
With the closets
The wall looking back toward the hallway
There's one more bedroom, which is on the opposite side of the apartment, but I forgot to take a picture of it. It has two twin beds and will be perfect for visitors - so ya'll are welcome any time!
26 April 2009
Animal facilities
Warning: There are a few somewhat graphic/disturbing images toward the end of this post.
Another area of interest in Djibouti is related to vector-borne and zoonotic disease (pathogens carried by insects and animals). Each year, over three million animals are transported from Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan, through Djibouti, to the Arabian peninsula and Gulf states, so there's huge potential for an outbreak of an emerging disease or the spread of an endemic disease. To develop a surveillance system for these types of diseases, I first met yesterday afternoon with a representative from the Ministry of Agriculture. With his support, today, I am trying to visit three main animal facilities in the country - the animal quarantine facility, the national slaughterhouse - to determine if any would be suitable for disease surveillance and/or research.
This morning, I started the day with a trip to the animal quarantine facility which receives all animals for quarantine as they arrive in Djibouti. I was given a full tour of the facilities and learned about the systems by which animals are received and shipped. Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures inside the facilities (it's owned by a private Saudi Arabian company and the owner who was showing me around didn't seem very pleased when I asked if I could take pictures) but I took a few pictures of the camels just outside the gate.
Camels being herded into the quarantine - each one is inspected and vaccinated as it enters
From here, the animals are brought inside to the slaughtering areas.
The carcasses are then loaded onto trucks to be transported to the markets for sale.
Their hides are treated with salt and laid outside to dry in the sun before being sold in bulk to leather producers.
I spent a lot of time at the quarantine and slaughterhouse facilities, so I wasn't able to visit the livestock farm near town, but I felt like I had seen enough. By the end of my time in the slaughterhouse, I was pretty much ready to move on and hop on a plane out of Djibouti.
25 April 2009
Housecall
I've had a cough for about two weeks now, and earlier this week, it was actually so bad that I lost my voice for two full days. My voice has only just begun to return and I'm still coughing a lot, so I sound like a mess (even though I feel just fine). My contact in the Ministry of Health (who, as a sidenote, may become the president of Djibouti within the next few years) noticed this tonight while we were meeting around 8:30 p.m. in the lobby of my hotel (his schedule is always packed so usually the only time I can get a couple hours of his time is pretty late). He interrupted our meeting to say he would be back in half an hour - he was worried about my cough and was going home to get his stethoscope and prescription pad. I tried to explain that I was fine, but he was insistent, so I figured it couldn't hurt to get a physician's advice and finally agreed. Half an hour later, he returned to the hotel and after a quick check-up, wrote me a prescription. Before I could begin to wonder how I would ever get the prescription filled, he had sent his driver to the pharmacy and told me the driver would deliver the prescription within an hour. I was all set!
Centre Paul Faure
Tuberculosis (TB) is a huge issue in Djibouti, so my first stop was Centre Paul Faure (CPF), the national reference center for tuberculosis. CPF sees about 9,000 patients per year for diagnosis of TB and many more for follow-up and treatment. The patients are of all ages and come not only from Djibouti but also from neighboring countries such as Ethiopia and Somalia, where diagnostics and treatment are unavailable.
Even though Djibouti is estimated to have the highest prevalence of TB in the world, the laboratory capacity for diagnosis is very limited. Diagnosis is based primarily on smear microscopy, which only detects about half of all positive cases tested, and there is no testing for drug susceptibility that could identify drug resistant strains of TB and allow patients who have resistant strains to have appropriate clinical follow-up.
One of my biggest projects in Djibouti, then, is to improve laboratory capacity for TB diagnosis at CPF. We're going to introduce a new TB diagnostic called MODS (microscopic-observed drug-susceptibility assay) for the diagnosis of all new suspect cases of TB at CPF. The test provides more accurate results (it detects 97% of all positive cases tested!) and also allows drug sensitivity testing for first line TB drugs. Plus the results are available much more rapidly than traditional cultures (most of the time within 5-7 days) and each test costs less than $3.
MODS is a really promising new technology for TB diagnosis, especially in countries like Djibouti. The only issue right now is that we have to turn the following spaces into biosafety level 2 laboratories before we can implement the test. It's going to be a challenge but hopefully we'll be able to do it!
