Wet climate and transportation routes accelerate spread of human plague.
Currently, large-scale transmissions of infectious diseases are becoming more closely associated with accelerated globalization and climate change, but quantitative analyses are still rare. By using an extensive dataset consisting of date and location of cases for the third plague pandemic from 1772 to 1964 in China and a novel method (nearest neighbour approach) which deals with both short- and long-distance transmissions, we found the presence of major roads, rivers and coastline accelerated the spread of plague and shaped the transmission patterns. We found that plague spread velocity was positively associated with wet conditions (measured by an index of drought and flood events) in China, probably due to flood-driven transmission by people or rodents. Our study provides new insights on transmission patterns and possible mechanisms behind variability in transmission speed, with implications for prevention and control measures. The methodology may also be applicable to studies of disease dynamics or species movement in other systems.
['Xu|Lei|L|', 'Stige|Leif Chr|LC|', 'Kausrud|Kyrre Linné|KL|', 'Ben Ari|Tamara|T|', 'Wang|Shuchun|S|', 'Fang|Xiye|X|', 'Schmid|Boris V|BV|', 'Liu|Qiyong|Q|', 'Stenseth|Nils Chr|NC|', 'Zhang|Zhibin|Z|']
D002681:China D002980:Climate D057231:Climate Change D021821:Communicable Diseases, Emerging D055864:Droughts D055868:Floods D006801:Humans D058873:Pandemics D010930:Plague
climate transportation third plague pandemic spread velocity movement ecology spread route