A serological survey of rodent plague in Taiwan and offshore islands.

Serological surveys were made on individual sera of small animals trapped on Taiwan and offshore islands. The animals were shrews of the species Suncus murinus, and rats of the species Rattus rattus and R. norvegicus. The tests showed that on MaKung in the Peng-hu Islands (Pescadores), 66% of the shrews, 30% of the R. rattus and 15% of the R. norvegicus had passive haemagglutination titres with fraction 1 antigens in the range of 1:16 to 1:256, indicative of previous plague infections. These observations supplement recent findings in Viet-Nam and confirm that plague is endemic not only in rats but also is shrews in the coastal provinces of South China.