Global formal live poultry and hatching egg trade network (2004-2016): description and association with poultry disease reporting and presence

As international trade constitutes one of the main spread pathways of diseases, a better understanding of the trade behaviors of countries will help identify strengths and areas for improvement in the approach of national authorities to controlling poultry diseases globally. Using data reported to the United Nations Comtrade and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) between 2004 and 2016 by 193 countries, we used a network analysis on trade data of poultry hatching eggs, live poultry of less than 185 g and live poultry of 185 g or more to determine that: 1) quantities traded between countries are substantial, and tend to increase (average increase of 800,000 poultry heads and 21,000 tons of hatching eggs each year equivalent to an increase by 2-fold in 17 yr); 2) the stability of the networks was low (a quarter to half of trade relationships maintained between 2 consecutive years) and the subnetworks favorable to the spread of diseases were in general consistent with regional clustering, trade exchanges being equally at intracontinental and intercontinental levels; 3) countries with highest number of partners were located in the same world regions for the 3 poultry networks - Americas and Europe for export (up to 107 partners) and Africa, Asia and Europe for import (up to 36 partners); 4) for live poultry, biggest exporting countries shared more poultry disease surveillance data, and reported more disease presence than others, which did not stop them from trading. Biggest importers reported less poultry disease surveillance data and reported more disease presence than others; and 5) the main structural and trend characteristics of the international trade networks were in general similar for the 3 networks. The information derived from this work underlines the importance of applying the preventive measures advocated by the OIE and will support countries to reduce the risk of introduction of pathogens causing poultry diseases.