The illegal transport of bushmeat via passengers' luggage

Aviation has facilitated the migration of families throughout the world. This has led to the development of new routes for the transportation of food. Animal meat and bushmeat are being packed in passengers’ personal checked-in luggage and transported across the world. Bushmeat is becoming a growing concern for countries because it has two major effects: the eradication of certain animal species and the transportation of foodborne pathogens. Zoonotic diseases spread from animals to humans, generally as foodborne pathogens. These pathogens are imported into other countries via the bushmeat or meat transported in passengers’ luggage. Numerous immigrants from non-European Union (EU) countries live in the EU. The European Commission recorded between 212 tons and 413 tons of meat and dairy products found in luggage for the years 2008-2011. The aim of this study is to evaluate the amount of bushmeat illegally entering the EU via passengers’ luggage and to determine the potential health risks that it may carry. This study is composed of three different parts. Thirty specifically selected articles were used for a literature review, the construction of a statistical model and the creation of a simulation app. Various components and calculations were used to create two statistical models, which calculate the estimated weight of bushmeat and meat, respectively, entering the EU via passengers’ luggage. All calculations and the creation of the simulation app were performed with the software R 3.6.3 (2020 02 29; (c) The R Foundation for Statistical Computing). The simulation app was generated using the Shiny package of the R software, which helps to construct a collaborative web app, to express the statistical models in an easy-to-use application. The statistical models predicted 81,745,631 kg of bushmeat and 471,527,631 kg of meat for 236,532,496 passengers entering the EU. The simulation app demonstrated that 13.9% of the bushmeat and 10.3% of the meat could potentially be carrying Escherichia coli. Four other pathogens were identified in bushmeat and five pathogens in meat transported in passengers’ luggage.