Ecological-Epizootiological Differentiation of Natural Plague Foci

Abstract

Plague foci differentiation is at the core of surveillance and forecasting of epizootic activity and hence achieving high effectiveness of prophylactic measures for prevention of human plague cases. Improvement of the plague foci differentiation taking into account recent data on their status and functioning is a relevant objective. The aim of the study was to differentiate natural plague foci according to the significance of ecology factors in the dynamics of epizootic activity. Materials and methods. Various models for forecasting epizootic activity of natural plague foci, based on the consistent statistical pattern recognition procedure were applied. 11 plague focal territories for which predictive models had ever been developed were surveyed. Results and discussion. The plague foci differ by impact of biotic and abiotic factors on epizootic activity. If epizootic activity depends on the biotic factors, forecasting can only be made on the basis of the data obtained directly during epizootiological surveillance. If epizootic activity depends on abiotic factors, such plague foci can be more depended on the global climate change. The put forward differentiation of focal areas allows for searching the common patterns of plague epizootic process in foci with different species of hosts and vectors, plague microbe variants and geographic setting, as well as for additional typification alongside the existing ones.