Plague,a devastating infectious disease caused by Yersinia pestis,has killed millions of people in the past and is still active in the natural foci of the world today.Understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of plagu...Plague,a devastating infectious disease caused by Yersinia pestis,has killed millions of people in the past and is still active in the natural foci of the world today.Understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of plague outbreaks in history is critically important,as it may help to facilitate prevention and control of potential future outbreaks.In this study,we explored spatiotemporal clusters of human plague occurrences in China using a machine-learning clustering method and reconstructed the potential transmission pattern during the Third Pandemic(1772-1964).We succeeded in identifying 6 clusters in the space domain(2D)and 13 clusters in the spatiotemporal domain(3D).Our results suggest that there were several temporal outbreaks and transmissions of plague in different spatial clusters.Together with the spatiotemporal nearest neighbor approach(ST-NNA),this method could allow us to have a clearer look at the spatiotemporal patterns of plague.展开更多
基金the National Research Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China(2016YFA0600104)the key grant for international cooperation of the National Science Foundation of China(31420103913)donations from Delos Living LLC and the Cyrus Tang Foundation to Tsinghua University.
文摘Plague,a devastating infectious disease caused by Yersinia pestis,has killed millions of people in the past and is still active in the natural foci of the world today.Understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of plague outbreaks in history is critically important,as it may help to facilitate prevention and control of potential future outbreaks.In this study,we explored spatiotemporal clusters of human plague occurrences in China using a machine-learning clustering method and reconstructed the potential transmission pattern during the Third Pandemic(1772-1964).We succeeded in identifying 6 clusters in the space domain(2D)and 13 clusters in the spatiotemporal domain(3D).Our results suggest that there were several temporal outbreaks and transmissions of plague in different spatial clusters.Together with the spatiotemporal nearest neighbor approach(ST-NNA),this method could allow us to have a clearer look at the spatiotemporal patterns of plague.
