2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15
Furious tenants of a Bronx building in New York faced city authorities and the property's owner on Wednesday after the death of a neighbor and the hospitalization of two more infected with leptospirosis, a rare disease transmitted by rats in their homes.
The Commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Mary Travis Bassett, reported through her Twitter account that three cases of this disease transmitted by contact with the urine of rats had been detected among residents of the building located at 750 Grand Concourse. An average of three cases of human infection from that disease are reported in New York each year.
According to a report aired by the New York-based CBS affiliate, neighbors complained that rats have been a problem for many years, and asked authorities why they allowed someone to die before reacting.
Letitia James, New York City Public Defender, took responsibility and said, “Listen, we failed. No doubt about it.
The building's owner, Ved Parkash, explained that when his tenants have complained about the rats, he has hired exterminators. Its tenants flatly contradict it, stating that the building has received 1,500 complaints about unsafe and unhygienic conditions, which is why public defenders have in the past rated it as one of the worst landlords in the city - a title Parkash rejects.
For his part, the city's mayor, Bill de Blasio, said in a statement that he is on the side of the tenants. "We will not rest until we have exhausted all measures to guarantee the health and safety of these residents," he said.
For now, authorities are working closely with Parkash to correct the rat problem, clean the building, and seal any existing holes or gaps to prevent future entry of other rodents.
According to the city's official information portal, NYC.gov, leptospirosis is a bacterium that can be transmitted from infected animals to humans by entering the body through the eyes, nose, mouth, wounds or cuts on the skin. In New York, contact with infected rats - or with places where they have urinated - is the main cause of this disease whose symptoms include fever, headache, chills, muscle pain, vomiting, red eyes, abdominal pain and diarrhea.
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