Abstract:The Sari-Dzhas natural mountain focus of plague with an area of 5000 sq. km is located mainly in Kyrgyzstan. This enzootic area belongs to a group of Tien-Shan mountain plague foci and crosses the boundaries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and China. After collapse of Soviet Union, this area was not investigated fully, thence we have estimated current status of hosts and vectors comparing to 1977 in the Sari-Dzhas focus. For period 1977-2014, the number of the gray marmot (Marmota baibacina) as main host of plague … Show more
“…Apparently, these factors give optimal conditions for the long-term circulation of Y. pestis biovar Antiqua (0.ANT2, 0.ANT3) in the populations of its natural host (31, 37). In total, 462 strains of Y. pestis were registered in the Sari-Dzhas area from 1944 to 1976 (4, 6, 7). Ectoparasites are actively involved in the epizootic process, in particular O. silantiewi and Rh.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In June–August 2012–2017, the Karakol Anti-Plague Department (KAPD) of the Republic Center for Quarantine and Dangerous Infections (RCQDI) organized field surveys within the Sari-Dzhas and Upper-Naryn foci. The fieldwork was organized as described by Weaver et al (22) and Sariyeva et al (6, 7). All work with wild and laboratory animals and plague strains was conducted in accordance with the regulations and protocols approved by the Ministry of Health of Kyrgyzstan (23) in 2015.…”
Section: Methodsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The Kyrgyz Ministry of Health established a temporal quarantine in parts of the country's mountainous northeast (5), where the risk of plague is well-known for a century. The endemic areas were investigated previously starting from 1942, and the last activity of plague was reported there in 1983 (4, 6, 7).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent separation of anti-plague station in Kyrgyzstan from the federal anti-plague system led to dramatic reduction of plague investigations and plague control measures. During the last couple of decades, the density of marmots was significantly reduced as a result of chemical suppression in the 1960s, increased hunting of marmots, habitat destruction, and climate changes (6–8, 21). This raises the question whether the changes in rodent communities in these areas affected marmots playing a leading role in circulation of plague pathogen.…”
The main purpose of this study was to clarify the role of gray marmots (
Marmota baibacina
) in the long-term maintenance of highly virulent strains of
Yersinia pestis
in two plague endemic foci of the Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan. We present data from regular observations of populations of
M. baibacina
and small rodents cohabiting with marmots in the mountainous grasslands of the Sari-Dzhas (east of Issyk-Kul Lake) and the Upper-Naryn (south of Issyk-Kul Lake) natural foci. During 2012–2017, an abundance of marmots and their ectoparasites (fleas and ticks) was significantly higher in Upper-Naryn comparing to Sari-Dzhas, although there were no differences in a number and diversity of small rodents cohabiting with marmots. The plague bacterium was detected either in marmots or in their ectoparasites collected during 4 of 6 years of observation in Sari-Dzhas and during 2 of 4 years of observation in Upper-Naryn. Plague was found in three sectors situated closely to each other in Sari-Dzhas and in 1 of 8 repeatedly surveyed sectors in Upper-Naryn. During 6 years, we isolated 9 strains of
Y. pestis
from marmots, two from their fleas
Oropsylla silantiewi
, one from an unidentified tick, and one from the gray hamster (
Cricetulus migratorius
). All plague strains isolated from the rodents and their ectoparasites in this study were similar to
Antiqua
biovar specific for marmots. The results indicate that plague can circulate continuously in the Tien Shan Mountains in populations of gray marmots and their ectoparasites with a facultative involvement of other rodent species after significant changes in rodent communities that happened in Kyrgyzstan during the previous two decades. The simultaneous field survey of two natural foci of plague, Sari-Dzhas, and Upper-Naryn, would be important for further analysis of circulation of
Y. pestis
strains belonging to
Antiqua
biovar in the Tien Shan Mountains.
“…Apparently, these factors give optimal conditions for the long-term circulation of Y. pestis biovar Antiqua (0.ANT2, 0.ANT3) in the populations of its natural host (31, 37). In total, 462 strains of Y. pestis were registered in the Sari-Dzhas area from 1944 to 1976 (4, 6, 7). Ectoparasites are actively involved in the epizootic process, in particular O. silantiewi and Rh.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…In June–August 2012–2017, the Karakol Anti-Plague Department (KAPD) of the Republic Center for Quarantine and Dangerous Infections (RCQDI) organized field surveys within the Sari-Dzhas and Upper-Naryn foci. The fieldwork was organized as described by Weaver et al (22) and Sariyeva et al (6, 7). All work with wild and laboratory animals and plague strains was conducted in accordance with the regulations and protocols approved by the Ministry of Health of Kyrgyzstan (23) in 2015.…”
Section: Methodsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The Kyrgyz Ministry of Health established a temporal quarantine in parts of the country's mountainous northeast (5), where the risk of plague is well-known for a century. The endemic areas were investigated previously starting from 1942, and the last activity of plague was reported there in 1983 (4, 6, 7).…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent separation of anti-plague station in Kyrgyzstan from the federal anti-plague system led to dramatic reduction of plague investigations and plague control measures. During the last couple of decades, the density of marmots was significantly reduced as a result of chemical suppression in the 1960s, increased hunting of marmots, habitat destruction, and climate changes (6–8, 21). This raises the question whether the changes in rodent communities in these areas affected marmots playing a leading role in circulation of plague pathogen.…”
The main purpose of this study was to clarify the role of gray marmots (
Marmota baibacina
) in the long-term maintenance of highly virulent strains of
Yersinia pestis
in two plague endemic foci of the Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan. We present data from regular observations of populations of
M. baibacina
and small rodents cohabiting with marmots in the mountainous grasslands of the Sari-Dzhas (east of Issyk-Kul Lake) and the Upper-Naryn (south of Issyk-Kul Lake) natural foci. During 2012–2017, an abundance of marmots and their ectoparasites (fleas and ticks) was significantly higher in Upper-Naryn comparing to Sari-Dzhas, although there were no differences in a number and diversity of small rodents cohabiting with marmots. The plague bacterium was detected either in marmots or in their ectoparasites collected during 4 of 6 years of observation in Sari-Dzhas and during 2 of 4 years of observation in Upper-Naryn. Plague was found in three sectors situated closely to each other in Sari-Dzhas and in 1 of 8 repeatedly surveyed sectors in Upper-Naryn. During 6 years, we isolated 9 strains of
Y. pestis
from marmots, two from their fleas
Oropsylla silantiewi
, one from an unidentified tick, and one from the gray hamster (
Cricetulus migratorius
). All plague strains isolated from the rodents and their ectoparasites in this study were similar to
Antiqua
biovar specific for marmots. The results indicate that plague can circulate continuously in the Tien Shan Mountains in populations of gray marmots and their ectoparasites with a facultative involvement of other rodent species after significant changes in rodent communities that happened in Kyrgyzstan during the previous two decades. The simultaneous field survey of two natural foci of plague, Sari-Dzhas, and Upper-Naryn, would be important for further analysis of circulation of
Y. pestis
strains belonging to
Antiqua
biovar in the Tien Shan Mountains.
“…An international marmot network of scientists and managers has been established to work on the conservation issues of these species since 2008 (http://www.cons-dev.org/ marm/MARM/EMARM/framarm/framarm.html). Meanwhile, plagues prevalence in some marmots were frequently reported to co-occur with sporadic epidemic in people all over the world, which also give rise to special supervision to the population fluctuations and epizootic activity of marmots [6][7][8]. Therefore, not only sociobiologists, conservationists and epidemiologist pay high attention to marmots, but also physiologists, who consider marmots as excellent animal models for the research of hibernation mechanism with possible applications to human medicine [4,9].…”
Background: Marmots are large Holarctic rodents with unique biological features, making them potential animal models in various research fields. Due to the rapid accumulation of the genetic data in marmots, a highly integrative database is urgent needed. Description: iMarmot is freely available on the web at http://www.marmotdb.org/ and currently contains the biological information of 14 marmots, genomic sequence of 6 marmots, syntenic relationship and orthologs among 3 marmots, and expression profiles of several hibernators and plague hosts. To assist with the genomic and transcriptomic analysis, we also integrated a set of analysis and visualization tools, such as KEGG or GO enrichment analysis, PCA, Blast, Muscle, GeneWise, Lastz, and JBrowse. Particularly, one DEGs (differentially expressed genes) module has been implemented in this database to visualize the gene expression changes in hibernators and plague hosts. Conclusion: This database will provide comprehensive information and analysis platform for researchers interested in understanding the biological features of marmots.
plague is a deadly zoonosis that periodically reemerges as small outbreaks in geographically limited foci where the causative agent Yersinia pestis may reside in soil. We analyzed a dataset of 1.005 carefully documented plague cases that were georeferenced over 113 years in peer-reviewed literature in the contiguous United States. Plotting outbreaks by counties defined as plague foci on geographical maps, we observed a significant co-localization of plague outbreaks with high soil salinity measured by an electric conductivity of >4 dS/ m −1 and aridity measured by an aridity index <0.5. Thus, we identified aridity and soil salinity as significantly associated with ecological risk factors for relapsing plague in the contiguous United States. these results reveal two evolutive parameters that are partially associated with anthropic activities, complicating the epidemiology of plague in the contiguous United States. exploiting aridity and soil salinity data may help in the surveillance of evolving plague foci in the contiguous United States.
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