Highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus in smuggled Thai eagles, Belgium

Abstract

We report the isolation and characterization of a highly pathogenic avian influenza A/H5N1 virus from Crested Hawk-Eagles smuggled into Europe by air travel. A screening performed in human and avian contacts indicated no dissemination occurred. Illegal movements of birds are a major threat for the introduction of highly pathogenic avian influenza.

Figure 1

Crested Hawk-Eagles confiscated at Brussels International Airport in the hand luggage of a Thai passenger. The birds were wrapped in a cotton cloth, with the heads free, and each of them inserted in a wicker tube ≈60 cm in length, with 1 end open. Pictures courtesy of Paul Meuleneire, custom investigations officer, antidrug group.

Figure 2

Neighbor-joining phylogenetic tree (rooted to A/turkey/England/50-92/1991) based on the alignment of a 654-bp fragment of the hemagglutinin gene of A/crested eagle/Belgium/2004 (bold italic), including the cleaving site. Bootstrap values >50 (1,000 replicates) are indicated near the branches. The Z cluster refers to Li et al. (10).