Johannesburg – The City of Johannesburg on Friday said it was worried about the health and environmental impact of the ongoing strike at waste management entity Pikitup after a rodent tested positive for the dormant Plague.
Johannesburg mayor Parks Tau said the city had already started to intensify efforts to contain health risks through the identification of areas that fell under the high risk category for urgent attention in collaboration with residents and the private sector.
This comes as about 4 000 Pikitup workers affiliated to the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) remain on an unprotected strike to press for wage hikes from R6 000 to R10 000 a month.
Negotiations to end the four-week strike between Pikitup, the City of Johannesburg, and workers broke down again late on Thursday.
Tau pleaded with Samwu to return to the negotiating table.
“These are the areas that are developing health hazards due to illegal dumping near trading facilities, public spaces, and recreational facilities. The city has prioritised deployment of extra resources in mainly these densely populated areas that are at the highest risk. These include Ivory Park, Diepsloot, and Alexandra,” Tau said during a media briefing.
He urged residents to co-operate and dump refuse at landfill or garden sites to minimise the threat to health.
This follows a routine monitoring programme for various rodent-borne diseases, including Plague, conducted by the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) together with environmental health services.
The NICD said one rodent tested positive for antibodies to Plague earlier this week.
The rodent was one of 13 from Mayibuye, Region A in Johannesburg, and among many hundreds tested annually from across the country as part of routine surveillance.
Professor Lucille Bloomberg of the NICD said the result indicated past exposure to the Plague organism (Yersinia pestis), and emphasised that that did not mean there was a Plague outbreak.
“The presence of Plague in an area is usually noticed when unusual ‘die-off’ of rodents occurs in a particular place. In this case, no ‘die-off’ has been observed,” Bloomberg said.
Further testing in rats from the area was underway to establish the extent of infection in other rodents in the same area, and to identify active Plague disease in local rodent populations.
“Presently there is no risk of human disease. Persons should observe usual precautions and not handle live or dead rodents. There have not been any cases of human Plague reported,” she said.
The NICD said the Plague organism was endemic among wild rodents in most sub-Saharan countries and was transmitted by fleas that lived on rodents.
People could get infected by being bitten by a flea carrying the organism or through coming into contact with dead rats. The last case of human Plague in South Africa occurred in 1982 in the Eastern Cape.
Gauteng health MEC Qedani Mahlangu called on Johannesburg residents to heed the call to assist with the clean-up drives and to use designated garden refuse sites and landfills, particularly as failure to do so could increase the health risks presented by the ongoing Pikitup strike.
She said the message community members had to heed was to take an interest and responsibility for cleaning their own areas, as rodents were breeding because the areas were filthy and dirty.
“The increase in food and water-borne diarrheal diseases are some of the threats that exist in the current environment in Johannesburg,” Mahlangu said.
“Children foraging in the rubbish could also contract these through hand contacts with mucus and phlegm, which contains the bacterium responsible for pulmonary TB and other diseases of the respiratory tract. This is why the citizens need to join forces with the city in its Bold Cleanup Campaign.”
African News Agency
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