# 7223
Two weeks ago, during a CDC: COCA Call On H7N9, a question was asked about the importation of potentially infected poultry from China. Dr. Faye Bresler supplied the following answer:
(Dr. Faye Bresler):
Hi, this is (Dr. Faye Bresler). I was formally with USDA, and I did a very quick search on the animal and plant health inspection service page on live poultry. It does indicate that there is no importation from the People's Republic of China. And quite a few other countries are also listed there. So I understand that there's a concern of smuggling, but in terms of authorized entry there is none.
As Dr. Bresler indicated, smuggling of food products from Asia (and Africa, and other regions as well) is a big problem around the world.
The movement of poultry across porous borders in India, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and China has undoubtedly helped in the spread of the H5N1 virus.
The smuggling of animal products into Europe and the United States is something we’ve discussed several times in the past, including Bushmeat,`Wild Flavor’ & EIDs, and WSJ: Nathan Wolfe & Viral Chatter).
Yesterday, The Washington Post carried a story of a Vietnamese passenger, on a flight into Dulles Airport, who was caught with 20 raw Chinese Silkie Chickens in his luggage.
U.S. Customs seizes 20 raw Chinese Silkie chickens at Dulles airport
By Annys Shin, Published: May 2
The passenger from Vietnam didn’t speak English. And U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at Dulles International Airport say they could not immediately find a translator. So they let the contents of the traveler’s luggage speak for itself and ran it through an X-ray machine.
That’s when they spotted the chickens, 20 of them, packed in Ziploc bags and tucked inside a cooler.
The author of the above article, unfortunately, chooses to make light (“no harm, no fowl”) of a serious issue.
A decade ago `wild flavor’ restaurants were the rage in mainland China, most particularly in Guangzhou Province. Diners there could indulge in exotic dishes – often slaughtered and cooked tableside - including dog, cat, civit, muskrat, ferret, monkey, along with a variety of snakes, reptiles, and birds.
What are commonly referred to as `bushmeat’.
It was from this practice that the SARS is believed to have emerged, when kitchen workers apparently became infected while preparing wild animals for consumption.
Before SARS burned out, more than 8,000 people were infected around the globe and at least 800 died.
In 2011 the British papers were filled with reports of `bushmeat’ being sold in the UK. A couple of links to articles include:
Meat from chimpanzees 'is on sale in Britain' in lucrative black market
Chimp meat discovered on menu in Midlands restaurants
The slaughtering of these intelligent (and often endangered) primates for food (but mostly profit) is horrific its own right, but it also has the very real potential of introducing zoonotic pathogens to humans to have contact with, or consume, these products.
To give some perspective on the size of the problem, in 2010 a study published in the journal Conservation Letters looked at the amount of smuggled bushmeat that was coming into Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport over a 17 day period on flights from west and central Africa.
An Associated Press article provides the details (link & excerpt below):
Tons of Bushmeat Smuggled Into Paris, Study Finds
By MARIA CHENG and CHRISTINA OKELLO Associated Press Writers
PARIS June 17, 2010 (AP)
(EXCERPT)
Experts found 11 types of bushmeat including monkeys, large rats, crocodiles, small antelopes and pangolins, or anteaters. Almost 40 percent were listed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
In 2005, the CDC’s EID Journal carried a perspective article on the dangers of bushmeat hunting by Nathan D. Wolfe, Peter Daszak, A. Marm Kilpatrick, and Donald S. Burke .
It describes how it may take multiple introductions of a zoonotic pathogen to man – over a period of years or decades – before it adapts well enough to human physiology to support human-to-human transmission.
Bushmeat Hunting, Deforestation, and Prediction of Zoonotic Disease
Admittedly, the smuggling of raw bushmeat is less likely to spread a virus than would bringing in live birds, but the risk is not zero, and dead birds are far easier to pack in carry on luggage (although `carrion’ luggage, may be a more accurate term).
While it is important we watch migratory flyways for clues as to how an avian virus might make its way from Asia to Europe or North America, the simple truth is people, and their contraband, make thousands of international flights everyday.
An advantage that the highly successful 1918 Spanish flu never had.
