ArticlePLoS neglected tropical diseases2017
The Asian house shrew Suncus murinus as a reservoir and source of human outbreaks of plague in Madagascar.
Article in PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- Host-anellovirus interactions in an island ecosystem: non-human primates and rodents in Madagascar harbour diverse, rich anellovirus populations.Microbial genomics · 2026Article
- Article
- First assessment of plague in terrestrial small mammals and fleas from Makira Natural Park and surroundings, North-eastern Madagascar.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Bioecology of fleas with a focus on the plague vector Xenopsylla Brasiliensis in Mandritsara district, Northern Madagascar.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Development and evaluation of a triplex real-time PCR assay for enhanced plague diagnostics in Madagascar.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Climatic variations and Yersinia pestis host-vector abundance: a case study in Ankazobe district to understand plague epidemiology in Madagascar.BMC infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Impact of Sanitation on Rodent Pullulation and Plague Status in an Informal Settlement on the Outskirts of Mahajanga (Madagascar).Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Surveillance of Fleas and Their Small Mammal Hosts for Plague Risks in Some Main Seaports of the Islands of the Southwestern Indian Ocean.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2024Article
- Reproductive ecology of the black rat (Rattus rattus) in Madagascar: the influence of density-dependent and -independent effects.Integrative zoology · 2024Article
- Cencurut virus: A novelOne health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2023Article
- One Health: navigating plague in Madagascar amidst COVID-19.Infectious diseases of poverty · 2023Article
- Phylogenetic analysis of the origin and spread of plague in Madagascar.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2023Article
- Yersinia pestis ΔApplied and environmental microbiology · 2023Article
- Polygenic plague resistance in the great gerbil uncovered by population sequencing.PNAS nexus · 2022Article
- Ecology and distribution of Leptospira spp., reservoir hosts and environmental interaction in Sri Lanka, with identification of a new strain.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2022Article
- Field assessment of dog as sentinel animal for plague in endemic foci of Madagascar.Integrative zoology · 2021Article
- Seasonal abundance of Leptotrombidium deliense, the vector of scrub typhus, in areas reporting acute encephalitis syndrome in Gorakhpur district, Uttar Pradesh, India.Experimental & applied acarology · 2021Article
- Composition of gut and oropharynx bacterial communities in Rattus norvegicus and Suncus murinus in China.BMC veterinary research · 2020Article
- Human plague: An old scourge that needs new answers.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2020Review
- Evolutionary selection of biofilm-mediated extended phenotypes in Yersinia pestis in response to a fluctuating environment.Nature communications · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
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 isolated from various hosts were consistent with two partially-linked transmission cycles, with plague persisting within the S. murinus population, occasionally spilling over into the rat and human populations. The recent isolation from a rat in Mahajanga of a Y. pestis strain genetically close to shrew strains obtained during the epidemics reinforces this hypothesis and suggests circulation of plague continues. The observed decline in S. murinus and Xenopsylla cheopis since the epidemics appears to have decreased the frequency of spillover events to the more susceptible rats, which act as a source of infection for humans. Although this may explain the lack of confirmed human cases in recent years, the current circulation of plague within the city highlights the continuing health threat.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.