Rising Rodent Numbers Pose Serious Disease Threat
Mail & Guardian Online
2006 April 04


Rising rodent numbers in Africa are raising the chance of an outbreak of diseases such bubonic plague, a conference in South Africa heard on Thursday.

The Rats and Human Health in Africa conference, attended by scientists and doctors from 20 countries, found rodent numbers in Africa are thriving as municipalities with growing populations struggle to manage sewage and refuse collection.

"[With] the increase in poverty and the rise in informal settlements the conditions are ideal for rodents to prosper and for the related diseases to flourish," Dr Lucille Blumberg, of the National Institute for Communicable Disease in Johannesburg, told the conference.

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ANALYSIS-Europe's Bird Flu Risk Easing But Not Over
Reuters AlertNet
2006 May 4
David Evans

The risk from migratory birds carrying the H5N1 virus from Africa to Europe may be easing but countries looking to relax measures protecting their poultry still need to be on guard, experts said on Thursday.

The spring migration involving millions of birds from Africa to the northern hemisphere has been underway for weeks, and yet so far there has been no recorded case of the Asian bird flu strain in Europe linked to wildfowl from the continent.

Conservation groups say the international trade in poultry is more to blame for spreading the virus that has killed more than 100 people, mostly in Asia.

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