Food and Environment Research Agency, Sand Hutton, York, UK.
Epidemiol Infect. 2013 Jul;141(7):1458-66. doi: 10.1017/S095026881300040X. Epub 2013 Mar 22.
The behaviour of certain infected individuals within socially structured populations can have a disproportionately large effect on the spatio-temporal distribution of infection. Endemic infection with Mycobacterium bovis in European badgers (Meles meles) in Great Britain and Ireland is an important source of bovine tuberculosis in cattle. Here we quantify the risk of infection in badger cubs in a high-density wild badger population, in relation to the infection status of resident adults. Over a 24-year period, we observed variation in the risk of cub infection, with those born into groups with resident infectious breeding females being over four times as likely to be detected excreting M. bovis than cubs from groups where there was no evidence of infection in adults. We discuss how our findings relate to the persistence of infection at both social group and population level, and the potential implications for disease control strategies.
在具有社会结构的种群中，某些受感染个体的行为可能会对感染的时空分布产生不成比例的巨大影响。在英国和爱尔兰，欧洲獾（Meles meles）中存在的牛分枝杆菌地方性感染是牛结核病在牛群中传播的重要来源。在这里，我们定量评估了高密度野生獾种群中幼獾的感染风险与成年居民的感染状况之间的关系。在 24 年的时间里，我们观察到幼獾感染风险的变化，与那些出生在有常驻传染性繁殖雌獾的群体中的幼獾相比，那些出生在没有成年獾感染证据的群体中的幼獾被检测出排泄牛分枝杆菌的可能性要高出四倍以上。我们讨论了我们的发现与社会群体和种群水平上感染的持续存在之间的关系，以及这些发现对疾病控制策略的潜在影响。
