Five field teams from the department have caught 233 rodents and destroyed them in a three-hour drive last Friday. The department was able to eradicate nearly 100,000 rodents within one year, Al-Madinah newspaper said in a report published on Wednesday.
Awad Al-Qahtani, director general of the department, said the rodent eradication drive, which started at 1.30 a.m. and ended at 4.30 a.m., concentrated on major areas infested with rodents. Several municipal officials, including Bashir Jibril, assistant director general of the Department for Insect Control and Hygiene, Rodent Eradication Program Supervisor Mushabbib Al-Asmari, and Field Follow Up Division Director Yahya Muhammad took part in the operation in the Balad area, he said. Five other areas in the city were also covered.
According to Al-Qahtani, each team is comprised of 10 people, including six workers plus a supervisor and an inspector in addition to two drivers. The team caught 204 rodents using mousetraps and 29 using poisoned food. The trapped rats were then taken to a remote area and destroyed by sinking them in tanks filled with water with a mixture of phosphoric pesticide. The perished rats were then buried in the city’s garbage dumping area, he said.
Referring to the modus operandi of catching rats, Al-Qahtani said his department collects information about areas infested with rodents from media reports, as well as complaints from local residents. “We then identify areas with huge infestations and prepare a campaign plan in cooperation with the district chief and representatives of the municipality. Our team members then start the drive to eradicate rats by putting mousetraps and poisoned food in the passages and places frequented by them,” he said.
Al-Qahtani said during last week’s campaign, mousetraps with food inside were put in rodent-infested areas at 1 a.m. and the team members then monitored them from some distance. “The team members collected the traps after three hours and took the rats in vehicles to the garbage dumping ground for disposal,” he added.
Hani Kamal, adviser for pest control at the municipality, said the rodent eradication drive is a very tough exercise. “The rat population is growing rapidly and each one gives birth to six to 10 babies in a single delivery, and the interval between their delivery is normally 21 days,” he said.
Rats spread a variety of diseases to humans, livestock and wild life. According to Kamal, the municipality is facing several impediments in its rodent eradication drive. “The unhygienic conditions at some of the residential places of foreign workers as well as at unplanned districts provide ideal breeding grounds for rodents. Dumping of leftover food on streets and narrow alleys, presence of food warehouses in unplanned districts, dilapidated buildings, poor drainage facilities, and dumping of garbage outside boxes set up by cleaning companies are some of the factors that result in the spread of rodents in the city,” he said.
