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Background: After the earthquake on 14, April 2010 at Yushu in China, a plague epidemic hosted by Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana) became a major public health concern during the reconstruction period. A rapid assessment of the distribution of Himalayan marmot in the area was urgent. The aims of this study were to analyze the relationship between environmental factors and the distribution of burrow systems of the marmot and to predict the distribution of marmots.Methods: Two types of marmot burrows (hibernation and temporary) in Yushu County were investigated from June to September in 2011. The location of every burrow was recorded with a global positioning system receiver. An ecological niche model was used to determine the relationship between the burrow occurrence data and environmental variables, such as land surface temperature (LST) in winter and summer, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in winter and summer, elevation, and soil type. The predictive accuracies of the models were assessed by the area under the curve of the receiving operator curve.Results: The models for hibernation and temporary burrows both performed well. The contribution orders of the variables were LST in winter and soil type, NDVI in winter and elevation for the hibernation burrow model, and LST in summer, NDVI in summer, soil type and elevation in the temporary burrow model. There were non-linear relationships between the probability of burrow presence and LST, NDVI and elevation. LST of 14 and 23 °C, NDVI of 0.22 and 0.60, and 4100 m were inflection points. A substantially higher probability of burrow presence was observed in swamp soil and dark felty soil than in other soil types. The potential area for hibernation burrows was 5696 km(2) (37.7% of Yushu County), and the area for temporary burrows was 7711 km(2) (51.0% of Yushu County).Conclusions: The results suggested that marmots preferred warm areas with relatively low altitudes and good vegetation conditions in Yushu County. Based on these results, the present research is useful in understanding the niche selection and distribution pattern of marmots in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Primary pneumonic plague (PPP) caused by Yersinia pestis is the most threatening clinical form of plague. An outbreak was reported in July 2009 in Qinghai Province, China. Methods. This outbreak was investigated by clinical, epidemiological, bacteriological, and immunological methods. Multilocus variable number tandem repeat analysis (MLVA) was used to track the source of the outbreak. Results. The index case, a patient with PPP, contaminated 11 close contacts. All the 12 cases, including the index patient, experienced sudden onset of fever, headache, and productive coughing with bloody sputum. Three of them died. Nevertheless, another 61 direct and 256 indirect contacts were not infected during the 2-week quarantine. Antibodies to F1 antigen were detected in 9 survival cases, with a 4-fold increase in titers in serum samples collected at different periods. Seven strains of Y. pestis were isolated from dogs and patients. Field investigation and MLVA of the isolated strains revealed that this outbreak was started by a deceased dog. Conclusion. Dogs are believed to be an indicator animal for plague surveillance, but their association with PPP is rare. Our results provide evidence for this possibility, which suggests the public health significance of dogs as a source of plague. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]