A Philippine city of Olongapo is offering bounties for
dead rats in an effort to prevent a repeat of a deadly epidemic spread
by rodent urine, an official said Wednesday.
Olongapo city residents are
being paid 10 pesos (23 US cents) for each adult rat captured and
killed, and five pesos for juveniles, to battle the bacterial disease
leptospirosis, city health administrator Jaime Alcano said.
Olongapo mayor Rolen Paulino
came up with the idea for the anti-rodent campaign, which Alcano said
has no known precedents in the Philippines, as a public relations
exercise to educate people about the disease.
Residents have only swapped
44 dead rats for cash since the month-long campaign began last week,
Alcano said, but he insisted the headlines generated by the bounties are
more important than how many rodents are killed.
“The success of our campaign does not rest
solely on the number of rats captured. This is just part of our
awareness campaign against the disease,” he told AFP.
Leptospirosis is an
infectious bacterial disease that lives in animal urine and is often
transmitted during annual flooding that plagues many parts of the
Philippines.
People catch it by walking in floods or having infected water touch cuts on their skin.
In mild cases it causes
flu-like symptoms, but in its most severe form, known as Weil’s disease,
it can cause organ failure and massive internal bleeding.
Between five and 30 per cent of infected people die, according to the World Health Organisation.
Olongapo, a city of about
200,000 people two hours’ drive northwest of Manila, was swamped by
floods in September last year that triggered a leptospirosis epidemic.
- More than 300 residents were infected over the following month, killing 10, Alcano said.
- Alcano said all Olongapo teachers are to undergo seminars on how avoid catching the disease, so they can pass the information on to their students.
Source: Agency
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