The potential risks of animal plague in natural foci of Meriones unguiculatus in the Inner Mongolia plateau predicted by Maximum Entropy model / 中华地方病学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To forecast the risk distribution of inter-animal plague in Meriones unguiculatus effectively and provide scientific evidence for prevention and control of inter-animal plague, through studying the correlation between meteorological and environmental factors and inter-animal plague in Meriones unguiculatus.@*Methods@#Positive data of plague bacterial culture in 30 epidemic source areas of Meriones unguiculatus in the Inner Mongolia plateau from 2005 to 2018, including detecting time, number of bacteria, latitude and longitude or detailed location, host type, were from the Chinese Disease Prevention and Control System Plague Prevention Management Information System and related professional institutions for plague prevention and treatment. Logistic regression was used to explore the relationship between the inter-animal plague and climate-related risk factors. The Maximum Entropy (Maxent) model was used to predict the habitat distributions of inter-animal plague, and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to validate the model.@*Results@#There were 11 climatic factors including annual mean temperature, isothermality, temperature seasonality, mean temperature of driest quarter, mean temperature of warmest quarter, mean temperature of coldest quarter, annual precipitation, precipitation seasonality, globcover, normalized difference vegetation index and slope, were related to the outbreak of plague among Meriones unguiculatus and included in the model (OR = 1.302, 0.455, 0.957, 0.930, 4.864, 0.179, 0.986, 1.126, 0.992, 0.981, 0.721, P < 0.01). The increase of annual mean temperature, mean temperature of warmest quarter and precipitation seasonality will increase the risk of animal plague in the plague foci of Meriones unguiculatus; the increase of isothermality, temperature seasonality, mean temperature of driest quarter, mean temperature of coldest quarter, annual precipitation, globcover, normalized difference vegetation index, and slope will reduce the risk of animal plague in the plague foci of Meriones unguiculatus. The areas under the curve (AUCs) of the Maxent model training data and test data were 0.988 and 0.985, the prediction effect of the model was better. The habitat distribution of Meriones unguiculatus plague mainly concentrated in the central and northern Ulanqab plateau, Ordos plateau, and eastern Hetao plain.@*Conclusions@#The use of Maxent model and climate data can predict the potential risks and spatial distribution of animal plague in Meriones unguiculatus; the results are accurate and reliable.