title: Wet climate and transportation routes accelerate spread of human plague.
abstract: 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.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management on Pest Insects and Rodents in Agriculture, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, , Beijing 100101, People's Republic of China, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, , PO Box 1066, Blindern, Oslo 0316, Norway, State Key Laboratory for Infectious Disease Prevention and Control, National Institute for Communicable Disease Control and Prevention, Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, , Beijing 102206, People's Republic of China.
authors: Lei
authors: L
authors: Xu
authors: Leif Chr
authors: LC
authors: Stige
authors: Kyrre Linné
authors: KL
authors: Kausrud
authors: Tamara
authors: T
authors: Ben Ari
authors: Shuchun
authors: S
authors: Wang
authors: Xiye
authors: X
authors: Fang
authors: Boris V
authors: BV
authors: Schmid
authors: Qiyong
authors: Q
authors: Liu
authors: Nils Chr
authors: NC
authors: Stenseth
authors: Zhibin
authors: Z
authors: Zhang
mesh_terms: D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D002980:Climate; D057231:Climate Change; D021821:Communicable Diseases, Emerging / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission*; D055864:Droughts; D055868:Floods; D006801:Humans; D058873:Pandemics; D010930:Plague / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000635:transmission*
keywords: climate; movement ecology; spread route; spread velocity; third plague pandemic; transportation