Transmission dynamics of primary pneumonic plague in the USA

Hinckley, Alison F.; Biggerstaff, Brad J.; Griffith, Kevin S.; Mead, Paul S.

doi:10.1017/s0950268811001245

Cited by 18 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Unless treatment is started in short order after the onset of symptoms, mortality is 80 to 100% (2). In contradistinction to anthrax, plague pneumonia is highly transmissible from person to person (11). Consequently, early in the time sequence after an intentional release, there may be a number of patients in the first cohort who present in the later stages of the disease and, consequently, will have a low likelihood of survivorship, even with the most aggressive antimicrobial therapy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural History of Yersinia pestis Pneumonia in Aerosol-Challenged BALB/c Mice

Heine

Chuvala

Riggins

et al. 2013

Antimicrob Agents Chemother

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b After a relatively short untreated interval, pneumonic plague has a mortality approaching 100%. We employed a murine model of aerosol challenge with Yersinia pestis to investigate the early course of pneumonic plague in the lung, blood, and spleen. We fit a mathematical model to all data simultaneously. The model fit to the data was acceptable. The number of organisms in the lung at baseline was estimated to be 135 (median) or 1,184 (mean) CFU/g. The doubling time was estimated as 1.5 to 1.7 h. Between 1 and 12 h postexposure, counts declined, but they then increased by 24 h, a finding hypothesized to be due to innate immunity. The model predicted that innate immunity declined with a half-time of 3 to 3.8 h. The threshold for bacteremia was 6.4 ؋ 10 4 to 1.52 ؋ 10 6 CFU/g. By 42 to 48 h, stationary phase was obtained. Lung bacterial burdens exceeded 10 log CFU/g. Obviating early defenses allows for rapid amplification of Y. pestis in bacteremia, making the rapid course with high mortality understandable.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Natural History of Yersinia pestis Pneumonia in Aerosol-Challenged BALB/c Mice

Heine

Chuvala

Riggins

et al. 2013

Antimicrob Agents Chemother

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“…Pneumonic plague outbreaks with human-to-human transmission are fortunately relatively rare, probably due to the estimated low basic reproduction number (R 0 ) between 1.2 and 1.4 [ 12 , 13 ]. Besides the recent outbreak in Madagascar, minor episodes of pneumonic plague have been described in recent years in the US [ 13 ], Madagascar [ 14 , 15 ], India [ 16 ], DRC [ 17 , 18 ], Uganda [ 19 ], Peru [ 20 ], and China [ 21 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human plague: An old scourge that needs new answers

et al. 2020

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Yersinia pestis, the bacterial causative agent of plague, remains an important threat to human health. Plague is a rodent-borne disease that has historically shown an outstanding ability to colonize and persist across different species, habitats, and environments while provoking sporadic cases, outbreaks, and deadly global epidemics among humans. Between September and November 2017, an outbreak of urban pneumonic plague was declared in Madagascar, which refocused the attention of the scientific community on this ancient human scourge. Given recent trends and plague's resilience to control in the wild, its high fatality rate in humans without early treatment, and its capacity to disrupt social and PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES

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“…Often small, self-limiting ( 2 ), and occurring in inaccessible places, epidemics may well have run their course before medical teams arrived ( 3 ). When authorities are vigilant, patients and contacts can be quickly identified, isolated, and, when possible, given effective antimicrobial drugs ( 4 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

Pneumonic Plague in Johannesburg, South Africa, 1904

Evans¹,

Egan²,

Hall³

2018

Emerg. Infect. Dis.

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Plague is a potentially dangerous reemerging disease. Because modern outbreaks are relatively infrequent, data for epidemiologic study are best found in historical accounts. In 1905, the Rand Plague Committee published a report describing an explosive outbreak of 113 cases of pneumonic plague that occurred in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1904. Using these data, we investigated social, spatial, and temporal dynamics and quantified transmissibility as measured by the time-varying reproduction number. Risk for transmission was highest when friends, family members, and caregivers approached the sick. Reproduction numbers were 2–4. Transmission rates rapidly diminished after implementation of control measures, including isolation and safer burial practices. A contemporaneous smaller bubonic plague outbreak associated with a low-key epizootic of rats also occurred. Clusters of cases of pneumonic plague were mostly limited to the Indian community; cases of bubonic plague were mostly associated with white communities and their black African servants.

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Transmission dynamics of primary pneumonic plague in the USA

Cited by 18 publications

References 21 publications

Natural History of Yersinia pestis Pneumonia in Aerosol-Challenged BALB/c Mice

Natural History of Yersinia pestis Pneumonia in Aerosol-Challenged BALB/c Mice

Human plague: An old scourge that needs new answers

Pneumonic Plague in Johannesburg, South Africa, 1904

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