EDITORIAL - Ratting out sanitation crisis

Rat infestation at Calabar High School, which was serious enough to warrant a three-day closure, and coming so soon after the huge fire at the Riverton City dump, indicates the enormous social stresses that have overtaken the city of Kingston.

Environmentalists regard rat infestation as an indicator of a degraded environment. Because the tropics present an ideal climate for rats, efforts have to be doubled to prevent infestation. And when we consider that rats breed every 28 days and produce litters of 10 or more, the population could explode in a short time. They need water, food, and shelter to survive.

Kingston has had its share of rat infestations, and we recall that New Kingston was overrun with rodents a few years back. Among the reasons cited were poor garbage collection and disposal methods, and the inability of an underfunded Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) to devise a comprehensive rat-control strategy.

Several diseases transmitted by animals are emerging as serious public-health threats throughout the world. Rats are a serious threat to the health of humans and domestic animals. Among the diseases rats transmit are leptospirosis, salmonellosis, murine typhus, and rat-bite fever.

From all indications, the rat-infestation problem is not confined to the school compound and has serious public-health implications for several surrounding communities.

Reports say the school administration became concerned about the infestation when rat droppings were observed in the staffroom. We assume that the infestation problem did not come about overnight and that the administration was aware of the problem and had been trying to deal with it quietly.

But could they have sought help earlier to prevent the situation from getting out of hand?

health hazards

Children deserve to get their education in a safe and clean environment. The Ministry of Education says it recently reminded schools to be "extremely cognisant" of the health hazards and risks associated with unhygienic practices.

Sanitation is fundamental to pest control and must be continuous. Television cameras showed an ugly side of the Red Hills Road-based school with mounds of garbage and rotting equipment scattered on parts of the campus.

So with a rat problem, why was nothing done to address the existing environmental factors which would provide a breeding ground for the rodents? Did inaction, or complacency, on the part of the school administration put students' lives at risk?

We trust that other schools are heeding the advice of the Ministry of Education to pay special attention to kitchen and bathroom facilities and to how they store materials, equipment, or discarded items. A successful rat-control strategy must include sanitation measures and should also attempt to address environmental factors that encourage rodents.

School is expected to resume at Calabar on Monday. But if sanitation measures are not maintained and proper garbage disposal not practised, the benefits of fumigation will be lost and the rats will return. The ideal situation would have been for there to be a simultaneous fumigation exercise in the areas adjacent to the school.

The country cannot ignore a potentially explosive situation, and we feel that this can best be addressed through a national public-health campaign that identifies vector hot spots and work to clean up these areas. Perhaps this, too, could become a component of the much-heralded Jamaica Emergency Employment Programme.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.