Medical alert: New York rats carry COVID-19 and ‘could pose a risk to people’

A problem that is on the ground, but also in basements, sewers, subways and all those places where rubbish accumulates: New York has been dealing with an overpopulation of rats for years and a doctor’s office puts the city on greater alert .

It’s those rodents from New York City they can carry the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19according to new research, and warns that it can be passed on to humans.

The research, published Thursday in the American Society for Microbiology’s “mBio,” established that rats could be infected with the Alpha, Delta and Omicron variants.

“Our results highlight the need for further monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in rat populations to detect possible secondary zoonotic transmission to humans,” said Dr. Henry Wan, the study’s principal investigator, in a revealing statement New York Post.

“Overall, our work in this space shows that animals may play a role in pandemics affecting humans, and it’s important that we continue to increase our understanding so we can protect human and animal health,” he added. dr. Wan., who also serves as professor and director of the Center for Influenza and Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Missouri.

The initial sample collection was conducted in the fall of 2021 in coordination with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Researchers collected samples from 79 Norway rats in the Big Apple to “to look for evidence”. New York portal.

While only 13 tested positive for the virus, the researchers touted the study as the first of its kind to look at rodent infections in the U.S. But they didn’t stop there: The scientists also conducted a “virus challenge study “, which determined which specific variants the parasite might infect.

The findings of the new study “highlight the need for further monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 in rat populations to determine whether the virus is circulating in animals and evolving into new strains that could pose a risk to humans,” he said. warned Dr. Wan, echoing the findings of previous studies.

According to the caption, there are as many rats as there are humans in this city of 8.5 million people, where authorities have resorted to poisons, birth control pills, sniffer dogs, the use of dry ice or dry ice, sticky traps, or drowning them in alcohol to combat them. All without much effectiveness, according to the New York Post.

The mayor of the city, Democrat Eric Adams, a former police officer who took office in January, often repeats that “there is nothing I hate more than rats.” “Cleaning our city and ridding our streets of these filthy creatures is the key to our recovery.”

In December 2022, the mayor had ordered the search for a director “with a killer instinct” to wage war on the rodent plague that creates a public health problem in the city.

One of the qualities that the new anti-mouse “tsar”.as the local press called her, she had to have “a virulent vehemence against vermin” and a “killer instinct to fight the real enemy: the relentless rat population” of the city.

“Despite their successful public engagement strategy and swearing presence in the press, the rats are not our friends. They are enemies that must be defeated by the combined forces of our city government,” reads the ad with the new job requirements. without humour.

“New York’s rats are known for their legendary ability to survive, but they don’t rule the city. We do,” recalled Jessica Tish, head of the Department of Public Health, who has started selling $48 T-shirts with the slogan : “Mice don’t rule the city. We do.”

In the capital of consumerism and throwaways, where containers for organic and inorganic waste are almost absent, so much so that mountains of garbage bags pile up on the sidewalks, rats have become a common image of the landscape, and passers-by must Be careful not to step on a clueless person who doesn’t hide in time.

In the first four months of 2022, the mayor’s office had received 7,400 calls about rat alerts, 60% more than in the same period in 2019, before the covid pandemic began.