background: there has never been a single case report of any parasitic zoono-sis in ile-ife while just a case of human acanthocephalan infection in nigeria is available. methods: fifty (house–rats) rattus rattus (linnaeus, 1758) were caught in houses and raw food sellers’ stalls in a market in ile-ife. a caught rat was removed from the cage and sacrificed by cervical jerking. a rat was weighed,...

Morphological asymmetry is widely used to measure developmental instability and higher levels of asymmetry often correlate with decreased mating success, increased inbreeding, increased stress and decreased habitat quality. We studied asymmetry and relationships between asymmetry and host identity in two flea species, host generalist Xenopsylla ramesis and host specialist Parapulex chephrenis, ...

Plague has been without doubt one of the most important and devastating epidemic diseases of mankind. During the past decade, this disease has received much attention because of its potential use as an agent of biowarfare and bioterrorism. However, while it is easy to forget its importance in the 21st century and view the disease only as a historic curiosity, relegating it to the sidelines of i...

The present study was performed to assess the infection of rodent reservoirs and their fleas to plaque agent (Yersinia pestis) in Kurdistan and North Khorasan respectively as active endemic and inactive nonendemic foci in the country. Live traps were used to collect rodents in spring and summer 2015. Totally, 109 rodents were trapped. Rodents of genus Apodemus witherbyi (40.5%) were the most ab...

Relative numbers of Xenopsylla vexabilis Jordan on Rattus eXlt/ans (Peale) and Mus musculus L. and in their nests were determined monthly in a field of maturing sugar cane at Kukuihaele, island of Hawaii, January 1962-March 1963, in a preliminary study using nest boxes and live traps. Mean numbers of fleas in active rat nests were most closely correlated with mean numbers of fleas infesting rat...

It is scarcely necessary to emphasize the .j important part played by fleas in the dissemina; tion of plague. The experimental researches of the Indian Plague Commission (1906) have definitely established the transmission of bubonic plague from rat to rat, from rat to man, and from man to man by the agency of rat fleas. Though over 25 species of Xcnopsylla are known to entomologists, only three...

In his book The Black Death transformed, Samuel K Cohn claims that the epidemic disease described in western European historical sources from AD 1347 to the midseventeenth century under the names plague, pestis, pestilence, plagen and the like must have been a disease other than the modern plague that reached Hong Kong in May 1894 from other parts of China, and later spread first to India and t...

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