The sylvatic cycle, also enzootic or sylvatic transmission cycle, is a portion of the natural transmission cycle of a

pathogen In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a ger ...

. Sylvatic refers to the occurrence of a subject in or affecting wild animals. The sylvatic cycle is the fraction of the pathogen population's lifespan spent cycling between wild animals and vectors. Humans are usually an incidental or dead-end host, infected by a vector. This is opposed to a "domestic" or "urban" cycle, in which the pathogen cycles between vectors and non-wild, urban, or domestic animals; humans may have differing infection rates from these cycles due to transmission efficiencies and environmental exposure levels. Examples of pathogens that contain a sylvatic cycle include

trichinosis Trichinosis, also known as trichinellosis, is a parasitic disease caused by nematodes, roundworms of the ''Trichinella'' type. During the initial infection, invasion of the intestines can result in diarrhea, abdominal pain, and vomiting. Migrat ...

, dengue viruses, ''

Yersinia pestis ''Yersinia pestis'' (''Y. pestis''; formerly '' Pasteurella pestis'') is a gram-negative, non-motile, coccobacillus bacterium without spores that is related to both '' Yersinia pseudotuberculosis'' and '' Yersinia enterocolitica''. It is a facu ...

'',Plague: Yersinia pestis
Chagas disease, and rabies.

References

Parasitology Epidemiology {{pathology-stub

See also

References