Table 3.
The patterns of infection rates of spotted fever group (SFG) Rickettsia in ticks, yaks, and Tibetan sheep grouped by prefecture and altitude of the sampling sites.
| Parameter | Number of positive samples (infection rate %) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tick-E* | Tick-F* | Yak | Tibetan sheep | Total | |
| Prefecture | |||||
| Yushu | 23/52 (44.2) | 43/73 (58.9) | 3/215 (1.4) | 1/126 (0.8) | 70/466 (15.0) |
| Guoluo | 53/96 (55.2) | 25/45 (55.6) | 22/210 (10.5) | 0/183 (0) | 100/534 (18.7) |
| p-Value | 0.4644 | 0.8526 | 0.0002 | 0.2292 | 0.1895 |
| Altitude (m) | |||||
| 3,000–4,000 | 51/87 (58.6) | 38/63 (60.3) | 22/223 (9.9) | 0/183 (0) | 111/556 (20.0) |
| 4,000–5,000 | 25/61 (41.0) | 30/55 (54.5) | 3/202 (1.5) | 1/126 (0.8) | 59/444 (13.3) |
| p-value | 0.2253 | 0.7424 | 0.0005 | 0.2292 | 0.0183 |
*
E, engorged-ticks collected from yaks or Tibetan sheep in this study; F, free ticks on the grass.