 and welcome to HealthFocus, a production of the Ministry of Health and Wellness. I am Fenelle Neptune. Today we have of us the Environmental Health Aid for Vector Control, Esther Griffith, and she'll provide the rest of the information on rodents and rodent controls. Welcome to the program. Thank you. Okay. We have the term rodents. Can you explain to us what exactly are rodents? Rodents are known mammals which have incisors which grow like five inches per year and they are an order of rats, mice and hamsters. In St. Lucia we have three types of rats that we work with which are the house mouse, the roof rat, and the Norway rat. As the name explains, the roof rat, you would normally find them in your ceilings. They would climb trees and so on. The Norway rat, they are the ground rats. They would make the burrows on the ground. They would normally be on the ground. That doesn't mean that they don't go up to the ceiling but they are known to be ground rats and the house mouse, those are the most troublesome ones that you will find in your homes. Okay. And with those rats and those mice, what health risks are they to the community? Well, as we know, the rats have a disease which can be spread which is called leptospirosis. And leptospirosis, you get that through an infected rat. All rats are not infected with the disease but we have some of them that are infected. And you can get in contact with the disease. If you, for instance, you have an abrasion, a curtain, then if your feet, and you would step in a puddle of water where the urine of an infected rat was, is there, is present and that goes into the abrasion, then you can be, you can contact the disease. Okay. And you mentioned in terms of if you have a cut, you can get leptospirosis. But what are some of the other ways you can actually get leptospirosis from the rat? Okay. Through your mucus membranes as well, your nose, your eyes, your mouth, for instance, if the rat pees or urinates in an area and you're there, maybe there's dust or something, the dust can enter your, one of those mucus membranes and you can be diagnosed with the leptospirosis disease. Okay. And how would a person know they actually have leptospirosis? What are the signs and symptoms also? Okay. Some of the symptoms are rash, headaches, fever, diarrhea, vomiting, muscle pain. And we have a few of them. Yeah. Rats, vomiting, vomiting, diarrhea, and fever and a few more. Okay. And with those symptoms, how can a person actually be cured from leptospirosis? Okay. What normally happens is as soon as the onset, when you feel those symptoms, what somebody can do is within five to seven days of those symptoms, they could go to the hospital and then it can be treated with either doxycycline or penicillin. If one is allergic to either or, they would just have to take, which would just be vice versa. Sorry. Okay. So would the Ministry of Health encourage persons to actually visit a doctor if they have any of the signs and symptoms? Yes, we would. Okay. Yes. And what harm, what other harm would you say that the rodents can actually cause? Okay. Well, there are a number of diseases that the rats can give you, like rat, bite, fever. We have toxoplasmosis. There are a number of diseases that you can get from the rodents. Okay. But the most common one is leptospirosis. Okay. And how would a person actually know that they actually have rodents at their home or in the place of establishment, the business place? Okay. You would see the signs. For example, you would see the droppings, the rat's feces, or maybe rub marks around an area, rub marks, which we call like the rats normally carry an oil on their body and they would be constantly going in and out for that same area. You would see the rub marks. You would also take the smell, a mousy smell. Also, they would put the borrows in the grounds and maybe you would see food scraps leading to maybe an area that they frequent. Okay. But would you see any droppings? Yes. The droppings, the feces as well. What we know about rats is as soon as they urinate, they would defecate at the same time. So you would see the droppings. The urinate, the pee you would not see because you would need a UV light, a special light to pass over and then you would know that there has been pee from a rat. Can you tell us what is the difference between a rat and a mouse? Okay. For one, the house mouse, it's very small and the tail is longer than the head and the body together. The droppings are very small and pointed at the two ends. Okay. And for the Norway rat or the roof rat, that's the bigger rat, the droppings is much bigger. The Norway rat, the droppings are long and blunt on both ends. The roof rat, like the house mouse, the droppings is bigger, but it has the same pointed ends. Both ends are pointed. Okay. But would the mice also leave the pee as well? Yes. Yes, they would. As long as they defecate, they urinate at the same time. It's for all of them. For both of them? Yes. All three of them. Great. Well, we are due for a break. We will be back in a moment. Last night, I don't sleep, guys. Man told me, I say, mosquitoes, mosquitoes. Now, I come for a little nap under the tree. I have a racket. I hitting them. Endless mosquitoes. What is the ministry of health doing? The ministry of health. No, no, no. Listen to me. Listen to me. Imagine last night, I caught a rat. Look, I have it. They want me to burn. Listen to me. Thank you. The government cannot do everything. Look at your surroundings. You have breeding grounds for mosquitoes and rats. The mosquitoes can give you zika, chicken gunia, dengue, yellow fever. The rats can give you leptospirosis and why are you sitting so close to that rat? You know the rats can give you leptospirosis. So come with me. Let's go and look at your surroundings and see what we can do to make a difference and make a change. All right. Well, let's go. You see that? We have to do something about that. You have a home for the rats. You have food for the rats. You have coconut husk with water in it. Oh, I didn't realize that. That's breeding ground for mosquitoes. We have to do something about that. Let's clean that up. Okay. All right. Nice try. Pinky, what the drum cover are you doing there? That should be sealed on the drum correctly. I forgot that. That's how mosquitoes can breed, you know. Okay. Pinky, how are you? You need to play a part, you know. All right. I'll try. Pinky, come. Let me show you that. You see that? That's my garbage bin there. That's why I put in all my garbage. But you cannot have it open like that. That's where the rats can go and eat. Okay. I didn't know that. You cannot have that. And you're saying it's the government. You have to take accountability of your own action. Keep it sealed. Okay. All right. Okay. Mock up one. Look at this tire. That's a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. We have to get rid of that water. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. What do we do with that now? Let's put it under the house. Okay. After we have removed all the water, we can put it in a place where it won't collect water. Okay? Okay. All right. Let's put it under the house. All right. Okay. All right. So, let's keep it under there. Okay. So, when it is there, it will not collect water to breed mosquitoes. Okay. All right. Very good. So, you see Pinky, these are some of the changes you can make. Be that change. Pest must go. This message was brought to you by the Ministry of Health and Wellness. For further information, contact the Environmental Health Department at 468-3700 or 468-3706. Be that change. Pest must go. Welcome back. We will continue our discussion with Esther Griffith on rodents and its control. Miss Griffith, can you tell us why is it necessary for persons to actually get rid of rats or rodents? Well, I would say that it's necessary to get rid of rats because for one, they cause a lot of damage. For instance, property damage. We lose a lot of food. We have a lot of food loss also and we don't want people to be infected with the disease, like I said. And yeah, basically, that's basically it. Okay. Loss of damage and... How can persons actually prevent rodents or discourage rodents in their homes and also in business places? Okay. But first of all, I would say that they need to rat-proof their homes, like for instance, put some screens, rat screens and proper sanitation, the way in which they store their food as well. Also proper garbage disposal, for instance, putting the garbage out on collection day so we wouldn't have garbage all around and that because all we know that the rats need food, shelter and water to survive. So as long as they get those things, they will. So if we take those things away from them and the way in which we, like I said, store our food, we can control the rats in our community and our business places. Okay. But for some persons, they might say, okay, we need to get rid of the garbage in order to prevent rats. But given that collections are on certain days, how can persons actually store their garbage to prevent rats coming in there? Okay. What they can do is get proper garbage bins with lids and also bins that are like two to three inches off the ground, those bins with wheels. Also, if they have the meat, so on, after we clean our meat with some of us tend to just drop it in the bin, what we could do is freeze them in plastic bags, put them in plastic bags and put them in our freezer until collection day and make sure that we don't leave the bins outside, like on the main road until collection day. Okay. And what about the business places? What advice would you give them? Well, for the business places, it would be a good idea for them to get grease straps as well and also get those bins. I think Solid Brits would provide some of the bins with the lids, make sure that they put the tidy garbage properly and some of them can also store it inside the business until collection day and do just as the householder may do freeze their meat because most of the restaurants in town, we know we have a lot of restaurants in town. So what they can do is try to freeze some of their meat and put it out on collection day as well. Okay. And how can a person actually destroy rats on the property? Okay. First, what we normally see at environmental health that we would start with source reduction, we don't want to go tell a person directly, use rodenticide. We'll try to do the proper salutation, proper disposal of garbage. Also, we would ask them to use glue traps, bait stations. And if this doesn't work and it's a case where it's beyond the traps, then we would ask them to use rodenticide or we would take it on our own to do an assessment and then go out to do the baiting for them. But our first thing at the environmental health is source reduction. Okay. And what role does environmental health play? Because you mentioned that the environmental health division actually go out. What role does the environmental health division play in terms of preventing and treating the situation of rats? Okay. So what do we do right now is basically surveillance, surveillance, where we do limited baiting. We have officers who go out every day to Castree City and they would do some baiting around the place. And normally we do an assessment first. Then in three days or two days, we would go out, do some baiting according to how the area is. When we come back, we would do a recheck to see if it has gone up or if it has gone down. Okay. And if you can give us your final thoughts, a message to St. Lucien as it relates to rats? Okay. What I would have to say is that we don't want to be like, we don't want to be stuck with leptospirosis. So the first thing that we can do as a people is try to store our garbage properly, the proper sanitation, which is always in place. We always need to put in place also and put our garbage out on collection day and try rat proofing our premises. Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, I want to thank you so much for being part of our program and providing us with information on rodent control. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. Well, that's how we come to the end of health focus on behalf of the entire production team. I am funnel Neptune. Thanks for watching.