Don't blame the pig! Call it the Mexican or North American flu. Those are two alternate names that may be popping up to replace the "swine flu," the virus that
started in Mexico.
While many
countries are sorting out how to properly deal with the outbreak of the virus, some are arguing over the name given to the illness.
Officials in some nations are taking offence to the reference "swine."
Israel doesn't like the association mainly because the dominant religions in the area, Judaism and Islam, both consider pigs a 'tainted' animal that neither will eat.
The Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health also backs up the name change because "the virus has not been isolated in animals to date."
Nor does it have anything to do with eating pork. The World Health Organization has already announced that the flu isn't transmissible by handling or eating the meat product.
The Mexican flu is a more appropriate name, says Israel's Deputy Health Minister Yakov Litzman. But that name doesn't work either. There's nothing linking the virus to make it strictly 'Mexican,' besides the fact the majority of cases first surfaced there.
The only discoveries in the flu are avian and human components. So maybe North American influenza would work better, which was how the name Spanish influenza came about, because of its geographic origins.