The Egyptian government decided to import three machines to accelerate the slaughtering process of pigs, Almasry Alyoum daily said on Sunday.

"We will import three new slaughtering machines to increase the capacity to 3,000 pigs a day," said Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Amin Abbaza in a statement.

The Egyptian government is scheduled to slaughter all pigs in the populous Arab country as a precaution to prevent influenza A/H1N1 virus.

According to Cairo governor Abdel Azem Wazir, the Egyptian government has slaughtered about 60,000 pigs raised by rubbish collectors in shantytown in Egypt's sprawling capital.

Another problem facing the government is that there are not enough factories to contain the pork in Egypt as the meat is being processed in separate factories.

The Egyptian government decided on Wednesday to slaughter all the pigs immediately in the country to prevent the outbreak of the fatal flu that has stalked Mexico and the United States.

It is estimated that Egypt, 90 percent of whose population are Muslim, has some 350,000 pigs, which are raised by the Christian minority who eat pork in Cairo, Giza, Qalubia and October 6 governorates.

(Xinhua News Agency May 3, 2009)