Lowell Jennifer L, Eisen Rebecca J, Schotthoefer Anna M, Xiaocheng Liang, Montenieri John A, Tanda Dale, Pape John, Schriefer Martin E, Antolin Michael F, Gage Kenneth L
Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, CO 80522, USA.
J Vector Ecol. 2009 Jun;34(1):22-31. doi: 10.1111/j.1948-7134.2009.00004.x.
Human plague risks (Yersinia pestis infection) are greatest when epizootics cause high mortality among this bacterium's natural rodent hosts. Therefore, health departments in plague-endemic areas commonly establish animal-based surveillance programs to monitor Y. pestis infection among plague hosts and vectors. The primary objectives of our study were to determine whether passive animal-based plague surveillance samples collected in Colorado from 1991 to 2005 were sampled from high human plague risk areas and whether these samples provided information useful for predicting human plague case locations. By comparing locations of plague-positive animal samples with a previously constructed GIS-based plague risk model, we determined that the majority of plague-positive Gunnison's prairie dogs (100%) and non-prairie dog sciurids (85.82%), and moderately high percentages of sigmodontine rodents (71.4%), domestic cats (69.3%), coyotes (62.9%), and domestic dogs (62.5%) were recovered within 1 km of the nearest area posing high peridomestic risk to humans. In contrast, the majority of white-tailed prairie dog (66.7%), leporid (cottontailed and jack rabbits) (71.4%), and black-tailed prairie dog (93.0%) samples originated more than 1 km from the nearest human risk habitat. Plague-positive animals or their fleas were rarely (one of 19 cases) collected within 2 km of a case exposure site during the 24 months preceding the dates of illness onset for these cases. Low spatial accuracy for identifying epizootic activity prior to human plague cases suggested that other mammalian species or their fleas are likely more important sources of human infection in high plague risk areas. To address this issue, epidemiological observations and multi-locus variable number tandem repeat analyses (MLVA) were used to preliminarily identify chipmunks as an under-sampled, but potentially important, species for human plague risk in Colorado.
当动物流行病导致鼠疫杆菌的天然啮齿动物宿主大量死亡时，人类感染鼠疫（耶尔森氏鼠疫杆菌感染）的风险最大。因此，鼠疫流行地区的卫生部门通常会建立基于动物的监测项目，以监测鼠疫宿主和病媒中的鼠疫杆菌感染情况。我们研究的主要目的是确定1991年至2005年在科罗拉多州采集的基于动物的被动鼠疫监测样本是否来自人类鼠疫高风险地区，以及这些样本是否能提供有助于预测人类鼠疫病例发生地点的信息。通过将鼠疫阳性动物样本的位置与先前构建的基于地理信息系统（GIS）的鼠疫风险模型进行比较，我们发现，大多数鼠疫阳性的甘尼森草原犬鼠（100%）和非草原犬鼠松鼠科动物（85.82%），以及相当高比例的稻鼠科啮齿动物（71.4%）、家猫（69.3%）、郊狼（62.9%）和家犬（62.5%）是在距离最近的对人类构成高家庭周边风险的区域1公里范围内采集到的。相比之下，大多数白尾草原犬鼠（66.7%）样本、兔科动物（棉尾兔和黑尾杰克兔）（71.4%）样本以及黑尾草原犬鼠（93.0%）样本的采集地点距离最近的人类风险栖息地超过1公里。在这些病例发病日期前的24个月内，很少（19例中的1例）在病例暴露地点2公里范围内采集到鼠疫阳性动物或其跳蚤。在人类鼠疫病例出现之前，识别动物流行病活动的空间准确性较低，这表明在高鼠疫风险地区，其他哺乳动物物种或其跳蚤可能是人类感染的更重要来源。为了解决这个问题，我们利用流行病学观察和多位点可变数目串联重复序列分析（MLVA）初步确定花栗鼠是科罗拉多州人类鼠疫风险中一个采样不足但可能很重要的物种。
