In 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) stopped using the term swine influenza or swine flu because it misrepresented the illness.

The term associated the illness with pigs, which of course is not true. The WHO took this dramatic step after Egypt decided to cull thousands of pigs believing that the pigs were responsible for spreading the illness.The scientific name of swine influenza is H1N1 influenza A, and the WHO decided to use this scientific name to refer to the illness because it was causing a confusion and letting people believe that pigs and pork products caused the illness. This, in turn, was causing countries to ban pork products and also unnecessarily slaughter pigs.

Although the virus that causes the illness originated in pigs, it also contains genes of viruses that attack humans and birds. Therefore, this strain of virus is a mutated form of the original swine flu, which primarily afflicts just pigs and not humans.

The current pandemic of swine influenza transmits from an infected human to an uninfected human, and not from coming into contact with pigs infected with the flu or the virus.

In an effort to quell the epidemic of swine flu in the country, Egypt ended up slaughtering around 300,000 pigs even though the WHO had announced that the illness is not connected to pigs and does not spread from consuming pork.

The WHO had announced categorically that culling pigs will not have effect in safeguarding people from getting swine flu. However, even countries like China, Russia and Ukraine ended up banning pork products imported Mexico and certain parts of the US because of fears of swine flu.

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