Cooperatives contracted to the Joburg City Council’s Jozi@Work programme have joined Alex’s infamous rat war.
The township’s filth and environmental decay have created conducive conditions for a booming rat population said to outnumber their human counterparts and posing a serious health outbreak if not contained.
Despite the pest control unit’s vector control programmes through owls based at some schools, fumigation of burrows and storm water drains, traps and cages, the rats continue to thrive due to wanton dumping and residents’ uncaring attitude towards their environment. This despite workshops and information distributed about health awareness by council’s environmental health unit.
The cooperatives Ntokozo Yezwe, Hope Multifunction and George Rangwanasha, have joined the war waged using rat traps.
Tandeka Zaca of Ntokozo Yezwe said since its inception, they have trapped 320 rats per night from 20 cages placed at strategic positions next to dumpsites, along rat paths, in watery spots and in abandoned scrap vehicles.
Zaca said the work helped clean up Alex but would be more successful with the public’s cooperation.
“Health should be everyone’s concern, in particular for children by parents. Some children have had their fingers amputated after rat bites caused gangrene and from the risk of contracting other deadly diseases,”she said.
She urged residents without metal bins to place their rubbish in plastic bags and only remove them from homes on collection days to avoid stray dogs, rats and humans tampering with them. She further urged residents to keep their toilets clean and to dump only at designated spots. “Some residents where we placed the traps say they can now sleep peacefully after our efforts,” she said.
Phyllis Masiavhula of Gochi Trading, a support agency, said they assisted in strengthening the rat traps’ operational and managerial capacity. “We ensure they have the cages and are trained on their use, have safety tools, trapped rats are collected as scheduled by the pest control unit and that they receive their payments on time,” Masiavhula said.
Thami Zwane of the city council said Jozi@Work engaged the support agency, as well as others to manufacture the cages. This as part of the city’s employment generation with the added value of health promotion. “The public should remain sensitive to the very imminent health risks, including from the deadly bubonic plague and other rat-related diseases if they do not improve or cooperate with council’s and the cooperatives’ work,” Zwane said. The caught rats are gassed and sampled for diseases at a lab.
Zaca urged council to consider acquiring more traps to cope with the rat population, which she said shifted to other areas when they detected human interference. She said their work had safety challenges when placing and monitoring traps in isolated and dark spots, in rainy weather when rats remained in their burrows and from the smell of rotting rats.
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