BACKGROUND From 1990 to 2006, fifty-five natural villages experienced at least one plague epidemic in Lianghe County, Yunnan Province, China. This study is aimed to document flea abundance and identify predictors in households of villages with endemic commensal rodent plague in Lianghe County. METHODS Trappings were used to collect fleas and interviews were conducted to gather demography, env...

Graft-vs.-host (GVH)-related immunosuppression has previously been demonstrated in F1 rodent recipients of parental lymphoid cells, and has been thought to result from an immunologic attack of the donor against the host. Since all cells of such F1 recipients could potentially bear target class I MHC alloantigens, it has not previously been possible to determine precisely the target tissues resp...

Manipulation of the master regulator of energy homeostasis AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activity is a strategy used by many intracellular pathogens for successful replication. Infection by most pathogens leads to an activation of host AMPK activity due to the energetic demands placed on the infected cell. Here, we demonstrate that the opposite is observed in cells infected with rodent ma...

Flies in the family Corethrellidae Edwards 1932 (Diptera) are known to be attracted to the mating calls of male frogs. For the first time, the hosts of corethrellids were identified to species by analyzing bloodmeals taken from resting female flies. A portion of the cytochrome b gene was amplified and sequenced from blood-engorged flies using vertebrate-specific primers. The flies were collecte...

the relationship between female oviposition preference and offspring performance is a key area of study on the evolution of host specificity. this study investigates host prefer-ence of the polyphagous hover fly syrphus ribesii (diptera: syrphidae) and compares it with some components of its offspring`s performance. females and offspring were tested on six naturally used aphid hosts (blackberry...

rodents are well established at port areas and their ectoparasite can be vectors of many diseases. ships at seaport play an important role in spreading disease by transporting infected vectors. plague, murine typhus, salmonellosis, trichinosis, leptospirosis and rat bite fever are known to be spread by rats. in view of the seriousness of the problem present study was undertaken to assess the pr...

background: zoonotic   cutaneous leishmaniasis (zcl) is an increasing health problems in many rural areas of iran. the aim of this study was to introduce a new alternative rodenticide to control the reservoirs of zcl, its effect on the vector density and the incidence of the disease in hyperendemic focus of esfa­han county, central iran. methods: the study was carried out from january 2011 to j...

Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) was considered to be transmitted by Apodemus agrarius and Rattus norvegicus, the principal animal hosts of Hantaan virus and Seoul virus, respectively. The aim of this study is to determine the correlation of HFRS incidence with capture rate and hantavirus infection rate of rodent species in Qingdao City, China. We collected HFRS patients' informatio...

Biodiversity loss can alter disease transmission; however, the magnitude and direction of these effects vary widely across ecosystems, scales, and pathogens. Here we experimentally examine the effects of one of the most globally pervasive patterns of biodiversity decline, the selective loss of large wildlife, on infection probability, intensity and population size of a group of common rodent-bo...

abstract background: zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (zcl) is one of the most important vector-borne diseases in iran. wild rodents play as a reservoir. the main aim of this study was to determine spatial analyses of the relationship between rodent’s active burrows and incidence of zcl in golestan province, north east of iran . methods : the cross-sectional study was conducted in 59 rural dist...