Predictive Thresholds for Plague in Kazakhstan

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 304; no. 5671; pp. 736 - 738
• Main Authors: Davis, Stephen, Begon, Mike, De Bruyn, Luc, Ageyev, Vladimir S., Klassovskiy, Nikolay L., Pole, Sergey B., Viljugrein, Hildegunn, Nils Chr. Stenseth, Leirs, Herwig
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Association for the Advancement of Science 30.04.2004; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Analysis; Animal diseases; Animals; Animals, Wild - microbiology; Bacteria; Bacteriology; Biological and medical sciences; Carrier state (Communicable diseases); Communicable Diseases; Community Characteristics; Development and progression; Disease Outbreaks - veterinary; Disease Reservoirs; Epidemics; Epidemiology; Expectation; Fleas; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Gerbillinae - microbiology; Gerbils; Health aspects; Humans; Infections; Infectious diseases; Insect Vectors - microbiology; Kazakhstan - epidemiology; Likelihood Functions; Microbiology; Models, Statistical; Nonlinear Dynamics; Persistence; Plague; Plague - epidemiology; Plague - prevention & control; Plague - transmission; Plague - veterinary; Population Density; Population ecology; Population Surveillance; Rhombomys opimus; Rodent Diseases - epidemiology; Siphonaptera - microbiology; Site Selection; Surveillance; Wildlife ecology; Yersinia pestis; Yersinia pestis - isolation & purification; Kazakhstan; Asia; Denmark; United Kingdom; Belgium; Norway; United States; Infection; Population survey; Bacteriosis; Bacteria; Reservoir; Wild animal; Epidemiology; Yersiniosis; Enterobacteriaceae; Bubonic plague; Yersinia pestis
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1095854

In Kazakhstan and elsewhere in central Asia, the bacterium Yersinia pestis circulates in natural populations of gerbils, which are the source of human cases of bubonic plague. Our analysis of field data collected between 1955 and 1996 shows that plague invades, fades out, and reinvades in response to fluctuations in the abundance of its main reservoir host, the great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus). This is a rare empirical example of the two types of abundance thresholds for infectious disease-invasion and persistence-operating in a single wildlife population. We parameterized predictive models that should reduce the costs of plague surveillance in central Asia and thereby encourage its continuance.