[Epidemiology and epizootiology of plague: the major role of the surveillance of reservoir populations of wild rodents in the control of permanent foci].

Plague is a bacterial infection, due to Yersinia pestis. It is essentially a zoonosis of rodents, communicable from rodent to rodent and from rodent to man by flea bite. From the first human case, acquired from rodents, interhuman transmission occurs by means of flea bite (bubonic plague) or is airborne (primary pulmonary plague). Long term implantation of plague amongst wild rodents populations after the third pandemic (1894 to present), created inveterate foci in all continents, except Europe. Those wild rodents settlements in arid biotopes, preserved from human activities, represent the main reservoir of plague. Their determination is mandatory for the surveillance of epizootics and the prevention of epidemics.