PARIS. In the 17th arrondissement of the French capital, an association called the “Order of Myicidal Citizens” was founded to record rat populations in public places. Members of the association tell Le Monde newspaper that they don’t hate mice, but think they should be raised because the otherwise cute rodents carry dangerous diseases.

Those concerns were echoed by the National Academy of Medicine, which in a July statement dismissed environmentalists’ objections to rat extermination. According to the Academy of Medicine, “Mice continue to pose a health threat due to zoonoses they can transmit to humans through their parasites, droppings, bites or claws.”

The main fear of the medical world is leptospirosis. This serious bacterial infection is commonly transmitted by mice and rats, which are its largest reservoir, according to the Pasteur Institute. The disease used to be called “channel disease”. Although most cases are reported in tropical countries, in France the number of cases has doubled in recent years, reaching 600 last year, the highest number since the 1920s.

This spread is multifactorial and climate change plays an important role as it contributes to flooding and rotting debris. Sylvain Chama, a member of the association, points to a cafe next to the Pont-Cardine metro station and says: “The owner calls us every three weeks. Rodents scare customers, and he insists that their number is rapidly increasing.” However, accurate recording of rodent populations remains a particularly challenging task.

A major fear in the medical world concerns leptospirosis, a bacterial infection commonly transmitted by mice and rats.

The Academy of Medicine says in its report that Paris and Marseille have between 1.5 and 1.75 rats per inhabitant, placing them in the top ten cities with the largest rat populations in the world. However, author and rat specialist Pierre Falgerac takes the opposite view, saying that “there are no scientific studies to calculate mouse populations.”

The Urban Fauna Service of the municipality of Paris performs 7,000 “operations” (setting traps and baits and spraying) a year. Some homicide agencies are using a different tactic, focusing on public awareness, teaching citizens how to properly secure trash bags before tossing them in trash cans, and changing garbage collection times so trash cans don’t stay full all night. Such a change in time is already being tested in the 11th and 12th municipal districts of the capital.

Meanwhile, cumulative use of rat poison has given relative immunity to rodents that are no longer affected by the anticoagulant substances of antidrugs, with 40% of rats showing immunity to these substances. The capital’s municipalities are currently testing other methods such as dry ice. This ice, composed of solidified carbon dioxide, deprives the nest of rodents of oxygen, killing them by suffocation.

Source: REUTERS