Israeli Health Minister Yakov Litzman has been updating a nervous public on the swine flu epidemic – and he started by renaming it for religious reasons.
“We will call it Mexican flu. We won’t call it swine flu,” said Mr Litzman, who belongs to the ultra-religious United Torah Judaism party.
Pigs are considered unclean under Jewish dietary laws. Muslims also do not eat pork for similar reasons.
Israel has yet to confirm a case of the flu which has claimed 100 lives.
Mr Litzman said there was no indication the virus had reached Israel, but precautionary measures and monitoring wwer required because of the heavy air traffic between Israel and the US, which has a number of confirmed cases.
BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8021301.stm
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