Detections of Yersinia pestis East of the Known Distribution of Active Plague in the United States

Vector Borne and Zoonotic Diseases
Erica L Mize, Hugh B Britten

Abstract

We examined fleas collected from black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) burrows from 2009 through 2011 in five national park units east of the known distribution of active plague across the northern Great Plains for the presence of Yersinia pestis. Across all national park units, Oropsylla tuberculata and Oropsylla hirsuta were the most common fleas collected from prairie dog burrows, 42.4% and 56.9%, respectively, of the 3964 fleas collected from burrow swabbing. Using a nested PCR assay, we detected 200 Y. pestis-positive fleas from 3117 assays. In total, 6.4% of assayed fleas were Y. pestis positive and 13.9% of prairie dog burrows swabbed contained Y. pestis-positive fleas. Evidence of the presence of Y. pestis was observed at all national park units except Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming. We detected the presence of Y. pestis without large die-offs, i.e., enzootic sylvatic plague, east of the known distribution of active plague and near the eastern edge of the present distribution of black-tailed prairie dogs. This study, in combination with previous work suggests that sylvatic plague likely occurs across the range of black-tailed prairie dogs and should now be treated as endemic across this range.

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Citations

Aug 27, 2016·World Journal of Microbiology & Biotechnology·Alicja Kuban-JankowskaMichal Wozniak
May 19, 2017·Vector Borne and Zoonotic Diseases·Lauren P Maestas, Hugh B Britten
Apr 7, 2017·Journal of Wildlife Diseases·Erica L MizeHugh B Britten
Oct 3, 2018·Ecology and Evolution·Robin E RussellTonie E Rocke
Nov 19, 2020·Journal of Vector Ecology : Journal of the Society for Vector Ecology·Julia E PojeMichael D Samuel

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
PCR

Software Mentioned

DeclareMathSizes
Quantitative Parasitology

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