'Operation Combat' initiated against rodents in Peshawar

Since the fixing of head money for killing large rodents in the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa did not yield positive results, the district administration of Peshawar has now announced "operation combat" against rodents that had claimed the lives of eight children and injured 400 others in city. The district administration has constituted a committee comprising Officials of Health, Agriculture and Water & Sanitation Department to initiate a house to house 'combat operation' against the rats and to stop them from multiplying, official sources said.
The district administration has initially released an amount of Rs 1 million for the operation and research based action and the amount could further be increased up to Rs 10 million to eradicate the menace of rats from the city, it was disclosed. The district administration has also decided to seek advice from zoologists to overcome the overwhelming increase in the rodent population in Peshawar. According to experts, a female rat is capable of producing a litter of 24 within a period of 35-days.
The district administration has divided Peshawar city into zones to eradicate the rats in a house-to-house combat operation. Dr Hina who deals in rat-bite cases at the Lady Reading Hospital confirmed an increase in incidents of rat-bite in Peshawar city, where nearly 426 patients were treated for bites by giant rats during the last one week.
She told APP that between 30 to 40 patients with complaints of rat-bite are treated at LRH on a daily basis, adding these giant rats could also be carriers of the rabies virus and their bites could be fatal. Meanwhile, assistant professor Department of Zoology, University of Peshawar while talking to APP said that killing the rats is not the way out, rather these could be exterminated through integrated approaches that included chemical, biological and other means. He explained that use of chemicals could kill 70 to 80 per cent of the rodent population but there exist possibilities that the remaining 20 to 30 per cent rodent population could be resistant to the chemicals, so a biological option should be used as a second option.