The Asian house shrew Suncus murinus as a reservoir and source of human outbreaks of plague in Madagascar.

ABSTRACT: Identifying key reservoirs for zoonoses is crucial for understanding variation in incidence. Plague re-emerged in Mahajanga, Madagascar in the 1990s but there has been no confirmed case since 1999. Here we combine ecological and genetic data, from during and after the epidemics, with experimental infections to examine the role of the shrew Suncus murinus in the plague epidemiological cycle. The predominance of S. murinus captures during the epidemics, their carriage of the flea vector and their infection with Yersinia pestis suggest they played an important role in the maintenance and transmission of plague. S. murinus exhibit a high but variable resistance to experimental Y. pestis infections, providing evidence of its ability to act as a maintenance host. Genetic analyses of the strains

SUBMITTER: Rahelinirina S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5714386 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature