Plague-carrying rat infestations rife in South Africa:
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The Afrikaans-language Sunday newspaper "Rapport" has that the province of Gauteng (Transvaal) suffers from unusually high levels of rat infestations by three varieties of rats - the black roof-rat, the brown rat and a mysterious black/white species which an animal expert believes could be a new hybrid.
Ronald Springfield, owner of one of Johannesburg's many vermin- control companies, has been doing this job for 34 years. He has never seen so many huge rat infestations before in his life as he does now. Springfield: "They are simply everywhere now, in all the slums, townships and the luxury-mansions alike all over greater Johannesburg." He used to be called upon mainly in the winter months to exterminate rat families which had moved into warmer dwellings, but now he's getting about ten callsa day to destroy rat populations every day of the year, he said.
The black roof-rat (rattus-rattus) which is the rat he catches the most, is a known bubonic plague carrier; the brown rat (Rattus Norwegicum) is a carrier of Weil's disease, viral haemorrhagic fever, and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Nothing is yet known about the disease-carrying abilities of the mysterious black-and-white rat however.
Ever since 2001, warnings of a possible bubonic plague outbreak in the greater Johannesburg area were being sounded by the Poison Working Group of South Africa -- affiliated to the Endangered Wilflife Trust. After these warnings, a 'plague watch' was set up in one endemic plague area at Coega in the Eastern Cape after a massive new harbour facility was developed there in this previous wild-life reserve.
Experts warn that these massive rat infestations cause conditions which are "ripe for a return of bubonic plague", also known as the Black Death, which destroyed a quarter of Europe's population in the 14th century, wiping out 25 million people, and also invaded South Africa's harbour regions during the 19th century.
These rat infestations are not limited to Gauteng/Transvaal: they also regularly seen by people monitoring the thousands of inner-city crime-cameras all over the country.
Rat infestations in South Africa pose a great health risk because bubonic plague-carrying fleas are found regularly on black roof rats all over the country by researchers. Even so, the last known reported outbreak which had actually killed humans had been in 1981 in Coega in the Eastern Cape province. In South Africa, bubonic plague-carrying rats were largely exterminated during the apartheid-era but one endemic pocket has always remained in Coega and it has now spread once again due to the SA regime's funding cuts in its veterinary science divisions.
What makes the health dangers of such rat infestations even more dreary in South Africa however is the fact that the country also has millions of highly vulnerable, immune-deficient people: with at least 6-million infected with the Aids virus -- and of whom 60% also are co-infected with TB+HIV. This population group is now also rapidly growing very resistant to antibiotics and dying of Extremely-Drug- Resistant Tuberculosis (XDR-TB).
Baragwanath Hospital: rats munched on the corpses:
The worst infestation Mr Springfield has had to deal with recently was at the Baragwanath-Hospital in Soweto. There, scores of rat families had set up home in the linings of the mortuary's iceboxes, he said -- adding the gruesome detail that some of the corpses' noses and lips had already been nibbled away by the rats by the time he arrived. Springfield said because of their long haircoats, rats always look much bigger to people than they actually are - the ones he finds never grow much larger than 35cm in length.
His company alone already gets some ten calls a day to exterminate rats all over greater Johannesburg, from private homes, businesses and industrial sites.
"These rats don't discriminate either, I get just as many calls from (the luxury suburb of) Sandton as I do from Soweto (the giant black township near Johannesburg) They are all over greater Johannesburg, in all the suburbs, in slum dwellings and mansions." The townships and Johannesburg's central business district still have the largest infestations of rats because of the incredibly filthy conditions there. Rubbish and waste food never gets cleaned off the streets there, he said.
Prof. Herman van der Bank of Johannesburg University's animal- studies department said it's difficult to establish what the new black-and-white rat might be until he has examined them. "It could well be a hybrid." He also confirmed having noticed the large increase in rat-infestations of late, but that there has not been a new scientific study on this infestation as yet. He also issued a warning: "people should not try to catch these rats themselves, as they will bite when they feel threatened," he warned.
In other parts of southern-Africa where TB-Aids-overburdened health systems have for the most part collapsed, plague outbreaks do occur among humans but often remain unreported.
However, in June 2006, one hundred deaths resulting from pneumonic plague were reported in the Ituri district of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo at the height of the civil war in that country. Many African countries have such poor health-care systems that they often do not even report such outbreaks to the Centres for Disease Control.
The CDC reports that Africa's plague foci are distributed from Uganda south on the eastern side of the continent, and thourghout southern Africa. "Severe outbreaks have occurred in recent years in Kenya, Tanzania, Zaire, Mozambique, and Botswana, with smaller outbreaks in other East African countries," they report.
The CDC recommends that epidemic plague can be best prevented by controlling rat populations in both urban and rural areas. The plague vaccine is no longer commercially available in the United States. It can only be treated with antibiotics.
LINKS:
ORIGINAL AFRIKAANS-LANGUAGE STORY ON JOHANNESBURG RAT INFESTATIONS:
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http://www.news24.com/Rapport/Gauteng-Rapport/ 0,,752-798_2139260,00.html
The last bubonic-plague outbreak in South Africa was in Coega in the Eastern Cape in 1981.The World Health organisation identifies the Coega area in the Eastern Cape as a 'plague endemic area'-- but bubonic plague-carrying fleas are regularly found on rodents all over South Africa since that time:
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http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/plague/info.htm -
http://www.dispatch.co.za/2004/03/26/Easterncape/acoega.html -
http://www.coega.co.za/files/Coega%20News_Vol%2015.pdf Recommendations for rodent management in South Africa:
http://www.nri.org/ratzooman/docs/ RSA_rodent_management.pdf
Homeless people battle large rat infestations in inner-city Johannesburg:
http://eau.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/10/2/223.pdfEastern Cape "bubonic plague watch" at Coega harbour:
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http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/plague/info.htm -
http://www.dispatch.co.za/2004/03/26/Easterncape/acoega.html -
http://www.coega.co.za/files/Coega%20News_Vol%2015.pdfKwazulu-Natal rat infestations study Cato Ridge: May 17 2006:
- http://
www.nri.org/ratzooman/docs/RSA_rodent_management.pdf -
http://www.sawubona.ca/RoBlog/C584549232/E20061125163036/index.html Pest news SA:
http://www.sapca.org.za/%7DUploads/Docs/PestNews.pdf Bubonic plague map of CDC:
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubonic_plague 
Topic: Bubonic-plague carrying rat infestations endanger millions in SA (Read 2400 times)