Sir,?As a late plague worker in India I must protest strongly against the assumption in your paper, that the sanitary authorities in India have taken the view that the rat is one of the main, if not the main disseminators of plague, from the information and experience gained in Australia. The paragraph to which exception must be taken by all workers in India is the following, which appears, und...

Plague is a widespread zoonotic disease that is caused by Yersinia pestis and has had devastating effects on the human population throughout history. Disappearance of the disease is unlikely due to the wide range of mammalian hosts and their attendant fleas. The flea/rodent life cycle of Y. pestis, a gram-negative obligate pathogen, exposes it to very different environmental conditions and has ...

Americans are increasingly exposed to exotic zoonotic diseases through travel, contact with exotic pets, occupational exposure, and leisure pursuits. Appropriate isolation precautions are required to prevent nosocomial transmission of rare zoonotic diseases for which person-to-person transmission has been documented. This minireview provides guidelines for the isolation of patients and manageme...

To determine if the Siberian polecat (Mustela eversmannii) represents a suitable model for the study of plague pathogenesis and prevention in the black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes), polecats were exposed to 10(3), 10(7), or 10(10) Yersinia pestis organisms by subcutaneous injection; an additional group was exposed to Y. pestis via ingestion of a plague-killed mouse. Plague killed 88% of pol...

Plague, caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, is a severe, often fatal disease. This study focuses on the plague-endemic West Nile region of Uganda, where limited information is available regarding environmental and behavioral risk factors associated with plague infection. We conducted observational surveys of 10 randomly selected huts within historically classified case and control villages ...

Plague seroprevalence was estimated in populations of pumas and bobcats in the western United States. High levels of exposure in plague-endemic regions indicate the need to consider the ecology and pathobiology of plague in nondomestic felid hosts to better understand the role of these species in disease persistence and transmission.

Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) continues to plague health-oriented government regulation. This is particularly reflected in recent challenges to tobacco control measures through bilateral investment agreements. There are numerous reform proposals circulating within the public health community. However, I suggest that perhaps it is time for the community to explore a stronger position ...

acute enlargement of one or the other set of lymph glands, occurring in a person who directly or indirectly has been in some relation to an infected locality, are not sufficient evidence to make the diagnosis of bubonic or Oriental plague. I am, of course, assuming that other causes?e.g. venereal, Hodgkins's disease?are excluded. Real plague is caused by a well-defined species of bacillus?bacil...

APART from a single case of plague contracted in a laboratory at Porton in 1962 the last English outbreak of plague occurred in Suffolk. There were several official reports published soon after and there have been a number of short accounts based on these reports. This account of the epidemic was compiled with the aid of contemporary sources such as newspapers, letters, minutes of committees an...

Plague caused by Yersinia pestis is one of the infectious diseases subject to the International Health Regulations (IHR). Permanent monitoring of the focal plague areas is mandatory in order to enable prompt control measures to prevent the spread of the disease. Therefore, the availability of efficient diagnosis tests is of paramount importance. Here, we describe a loop-mediated isothermal ampl...