EU authorities have been searching all passengers who traveled on flights with a Thai man who tried to smuggle two Asian eagles into Belgium on Oct. 18 due to health concerns. Most of the passengers were Taiwanese.
A total of 135 passengers were reportedly aboard an EVA Airways flight from Bangkok to Vienna the night of Oct. 17 with the Thai man who carried two mountain hawk eagles in his hand luggage. Of the passengers, 122 were Taiwanese.
The eagles were then smuggled into the passenger cabin on an Austrian Airlines flight from Vienna to Brussels in the morning of Oct. 18, according to EU officials.
On Oct. 23 the eagles were confirmed to have been infected with the bird-flu virus.
Belgium asked the European Commission for help to find the passengers who might have been exposed to the virus.
"Although the risk of transmission from animals to humans is limited, it cannot be excluded since the birds traveled in the passenger cabin in hand luggage," the commission said in a statement.
The Thai man was apprehended by customs officers at Brussels airport when the eagles were discovered in his bags, alive and in plastic tubing on Oct. 18. But he was apparently then released.
The eagles have been destroyed, as have some 200 parrots that were being kept at the same quarantine center.
Officials from Department of Health said Tuesday that it was highly unlikely that the Taiwanese passengers were inflicted with bird flu by the two eagles because the birds were contained in closed luggage and the Thai man has been found to be free of infection.
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