Comprehensive approach to pathogen screening for a stowaway rat

In April 2017, a rat was observed on an airplane during a flight from Miami (USA) to Berlin (Germany). After landing in Berlin, significant efforts were made to kill and collect the rat and disinfect the airplane. As rats are known reservoir hosts for a variety of zoonotic pathogens, tissue and blood samples were collected to screen for zoonotic pathogens and other known and novel infectious agents using inter alia high-throughput sequencing.