Israel will start using the term “Mexican flu” instead of “swine flu” because pork is banned by Judaism. Two men in Israeli have been hospitalized after they complained of swine flu-like symptoms.
Eating pig’s meat is prohibited in Judaism, the major religion in Israel. The Israeli Christians don’t have this restriction, but the Arab Israelis living in the region who follow Islam also don’t eat pork.
An Israeli health minister taking this fact into consideration has
decided to ban the use of the pig name and has changed it to “Mexican flu”.
The word “swine flu” is banned in Israel, he said.
Israel has quarantined two Israelis, who recently returned from Mexico and are sick. The officials are waiting for the results.
Even the word “swine flu” is a misnomer, because the virus originated from birds, humans and pigs, according to the World Organization for Animal Health.
Besides swine flu didn’t originate from Mexico, it could have originated from anywhere.
From
Wikipedia:
In swine, three influenza A virus subtypes (H1N1, H3N2, and H1N2) are circulating throughout the world. In the United States, the H1N1 subtype was exclusively prevalent among swine populations before 1998; however, since late August 1998, H3N2 subtypes have been isolated from pigs. As of 2004, H3N2 virus isolates in US swine and turkey stocks were triple reassortants, containing genes from human (HA, NA, and PB1), swine (NS, NP, and M), and avian (PB2 and PA) lineages.
The swine flu virus was first
isolated from a pig in 1930 by the US researchers but there is no record where the virus originated.
