Publications by authors named "Xianbin Cong"
No evidence for persistent natural plague reservoirs in historical and modern Europe.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
December 2022
Article Synopsis
- The text discusses three major pandemics caused by plague throughout history: the Justinianic plague, the Black Death, and the Third pandemic which began in 1894.
- The study analyzes environmental conditions in China to investigate whether similar conditions existed in Europe to support natural plague reservoirs.
- Findings indicate that Europe lacks the necessary soil characteristics and rodent diversity to support long-term plague reservoirs, suggesting that European wildlife may not have been a significant source of plague historically.
What Is Already Known About This Topic?: There were a total of 4 and 3 human plague cases that occurred in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 2019 and 2020, respectively, with 1 and 2 deaths in 2019 and 2020 respectively, which indicated that plague still poses a significant threat to human health especially for farmers, shepherds, or residents living in native plague foci.
What Is Added By This Report?: On August 14, 2021, 1 patient from the Otog Qi (County) in the Inner Mongolia sought treatment in Yinchuan City (the capital of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region), where the patient was diagnosed with bubonic plague and secondary septicemic plague. The genetic source tracking of associated strains indicated that human plague cases were infected from animal reservoirs in Inner Mongolia.
[Epidemiological characteristics of human plague in different age groups in China from 1950-2012].
Zhonghua Liu Xing Bing Xue Za Zhi
January 2014
[Application of Best Subsets Regression on the risk classification for Spermophilus Dauricus Focus].
Zhonghua Liu Xing Bing Xue Za Zhi
February 2014
Objective: To study the risk classification of animal plague in Spermophilus Dauricus Focus, using the Best Subsets Regression (BSR) model.
Methods: Matlab, BSR and exponential smoothing were employed to develop and evaluate a model for risk classification as well as to forecast plague epidemics at the Spermophilus Dauricus Focus. Data was based upon the Inner Mongolia surveillance programs.