On December 27, 2006 the government declared the HPAI outbreak to be contained and banned free-ranging ducks in the Mekong Delta (southern Vietnam), but raised concerns over illegal poultry smuggling from China to Vietnam (Table 6_2007k).
Illicit Poultry Smuggling May Aid Spread of Bird Flu There is increasing evidence that a thriving international trade in smuggled poultry -- including live birds, chicks and meat is helping spread bird flu, experts say.
(The case led to the indictment of six former executives of the Maine Biological Laboratories in 2005 for smuggling poultry viruses into the United States in 1998).
However, we cannot rule out the possibility of an alternative route of introduction of this genotype into the farms, e.g., through wild birds or smuggled poultry.
Most previous studies with evidences on the cause and spread of H5N1 were based on sporadic specific cases, such as virus detection in smuggling and illegal poultry trading [6], or isolation in wild bird populations [7], using virus isolation, sequencing and phylogenetic analyses.
We can speculate that the H9N2 viruses were introduced into backyard poultry in Bangladesh by cross-border trading or smuggling from Pakistan, presumably via India, during the early 2000s, because ∼18% of backyard chickens tested during 2000 2003 were seropositive for AIVs.
Third, even in the absence of those conditions, new introduction from endemically infected countries through regular poultry trade (Gauthier-Clerc et al., 2007), smuggling (Van Borm et al., 2005), contaminated fomites (Yamamoto et al., 2008), or migratory birds contributes to HPAI H5N1 reintroduction and persistence (Ducatez et al., 2006; Starick et al., 2008; Globig et al., 2009).
Federal officials in Chattanooga, Tenn., charged Tyson Foods Inc., the nation's largest beef and poultry processor, and six employees, with conspiring to smuggle hundreds of people from Mexico and Central America to work at more than a dozen plants.
Communist neighbours Vietnam and China share a mountainous, remote border stretching 1,350km 8399 miles), marked primarily by the Nam Thi river and rife with smuggling of goods of all kinds: fruit, live poultry and women.
The world's largest poultry processor and six employees were indicted for conspiracy to smuggle illegal immigrants into the U.S. to work at its plants, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Poultry from bird-flu-infected countries has been banned in Europe but smuggling seriously undermines those bans, says Gen. Emilio Borghini, commander of the Military Police Health Service in Italy.
