Plague: past, present, and future

Nils Chr Stenseth, Bakyt B Atshabar, Mike Begon, Steven R Belmain, Eric Bertherat, Elisabeth Carniel, Kenneth L Gage, Herwig Leirs, Lila Rahalison, Nils Chr Stenseth, Bakyt B Atshabar, Mike Begon, Steven R Belmain, Eric Bertherat, Elisabeth Carniel, Kenneth L Gage, Herwig Leirs, Lila Rahalison

Abstract

The authors argue that plague should be taken much more seriously by the international health community.

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: NCS declares that he is the project leader of the research contract number ICA 2-CT2000-10046 granted from the European Commission INCO-COPERNICUS programme for the STEPICA project that has contributed research on the ecology of plague in Central Asia; BBA, MB, EC, and HL participated in the same project. MB declares that he is the project leader of the research contract number 063576/Z/01/Z granted from the Wellcome Trust. SRB declares that he is the technical coordinator and project leader of research contract number ICA4 2002 10056 granted from the European Commission INCO-DEV programme for the RATZOOMAN project that has contributed to research on the ecology of plague in southern Africa. HL declares that he participated in the same project and that he is holding a research grant from the Fund for Scientific Research (Flanders) to investigate the distribution of plague in Africa.

Figures

Figure 1. The Global Distribution of Plague
Figure 1. The Global Distribution of Plague
(A) Map showing countries with known presence of plague in wild reservoir species (red) (after [3]). For US only the mainland below 50° N is shown. (B) Annual number of human plague cases over different continents, reported to WHO in the period 1954–2005. (C) Cumulative number of countries that reported plague to WHO since 1954.
Figure 2. Possible Transmission Pathways for the…
Figure 2. Possible Transmission Pathways for the Plague Agent, Y. pestis
These pathways include sylvatic rodent-flea cycles (A), the commensal rodent-flea cycles (B), and the pneumonic transmission in humans (C). The colour of the arrows indicates the mechanism (flea bites, air particles, meat consumption) through which the bacteria are transferred from one host to another. Dark blue arrows indicate ways in which plague can move to other areas.

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Source: PubMed

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