Health Hygiene & Sanitation

Lesson 19 : Rodent Control

Diseases Transmitted By Rodents

• Bacterial
• Plague, tularemia, salmonellosis
• Viral
• Lassa Fever, encephalitis
• Rickettsial
• Scrub typhus, murine typhus, rickettsial pox
• Parasitic
• Amebiasis, Chaga’s disease
• Others
• Rat bite fever, Leptospirosis, ring worm etc

Anti-Rodent Measures

• Sanitation measures
• Trapping
• Rodenticides
• Fumigation
• Chemosterilants

Anti-Rodent Measures – Sanitation

• Sound environmental sanitation is the most effective weapon in deratization campaign.
• Rats require three things : food, water and shelter. If these are denied, rats will naturally decrease in density.
• Sanitation is therefore essential to the permanent control of rats and mice, and all measures should be regarded as supplementary to sanitation.

Anti-Rodent Measures – Trapping

• Trapping of rats is a simple operation
• But it causes temporary reduction in the number of commensal rodents.
• It is recommended that the number of traps laid should be at least 5 per cent of the human population.
• The 'wonder trap' developed by the Haffkine Institute, Mumbai is credited to trap as many as 25 rats at a time.
• The traps are usually baited with indigenous foods of the locality.
• The captured rats must be destroyed which may be done by drowning them in water.
• Rats by nature are suspicious animals, and will soon become "trap-wise" and avoid baited traps.
• Trapping therefore should be considered supplementary to other methods of rodent control.