Flea diversity as an element for persistence of plague bacteria in an East African plague focus

How plague bacteria persist during inter-epizootic periods is poorly understood, yet is important for predicting when and where epizootics are likely to occur and for designing interventions aimed at local elimination of the pathogen.

Existing hypotheses of how Y. pestis is maintained within plague foci typically center on host abundance or diversity, but little attention has been paid to the importance of flea diversity in enzootic maintenance. Our study compares host and flea abundance and diversity along an elevation gradient that spans from low elevation sites outside of a plague focus in the West Nile region of Uganda (~725-1160 m) to higher elevation sites within the focus (~1380-1630 m).