Colorado Animal-Based Plague Surveillance Systems: Relationships between Targeted Animal Species and Prediction Efficacy of Areas at Risk for Humans

Human plague risks (Yersinia pestis infection) are greatest when epizootics cause high mortality among this bacterium's natural rodent hosts. Therefore, health departments in plague-endemic areas commonly establish animal-based surveillance programs to monitor Y. pestis infection among plague hosts and vectors. The primary objectives of our study were to determine whether passive animal-based plague surveillance samples collected in Colorado from 1991 to 2005 were sampled from high human plague risk areas and whether these samples provided information useful for predicting human plague case locations. By comparing locations of plague-positive animal samples with a previously constructed GIS-based plague risk model,...

Categories: Publication; Types: Citation, Journal Citation; Tags: Journal of Vector Ecology, Society for Vector Ecology, Yersinia pestis, chipmunks, plague surveillance