[Experience in the comparative evaluation of the population sensitivity of mammals to the plague microbe based on the results of an epizootiological survey].

An essentially new method for the evaluation of the population susceptibility of mammals to Pasteurella pestis without the experimental infection of the animals is proposed. This method consists in using the conjugate result of the mass bacteriological and serological survey of plague carriers (the ratio of the number of infected animals to that of the animals having had the disease). The susceptibility of 12 rodent and Martes species has been studied with the use of this criterion on the basis of the data obtained in the epizootological survey of the plague foci in the vicinity of the Aral Sea in 1950-1979. Among all studied animals, even those belonging to the species universally known as highly susceptible, a considerable prevalence of the animals having had the disease over the infected animals has been established.