Rats are natural reservoirs for more than 60 deadly parasitic and viral diseases harmful to man, Prof. Uade Ugbomoiko, a zoologist with the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, said on Wednesday.
Ugbomoiko made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Ilorin.
He said that studies carried out in some rural communities in Edo State identified eight species of parasites from different species of rats.
He said that the occurrence of parasites and their hosts were influenced by seasonal rainfall.
According to him, global warming can increase the potential of some of these parasites to change their hosts.
Ugbomoiko said that a parasite called mastdomys natalensis is the reservoir host of Lassa fever, a disease which he recalled recently claimed several lives in Ekpoma town and its environs in Edo State.
He urged Nigerians to always sanitise their houses and surroundings against rats, adding that the rodents were more prevalent in human habitation during the dry season.
Rats, he observed, invaded houses in search of food because of bush burning and returned to the bush during the rainy season.
The zoologist identified socio-economic and environmental indices such as poverty, illiteracy, social deprivation and poor sanitary conditions, among others, as factors that could lead to the transmission of a parasite.
“Improving the health of Nigerians from parasitic attacks should be ensured through the provision of basic needs of the people by the government,” he said.
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