CAPE TOWN - Fearful Freedom Park informal settlement residents in Ottery have appealed for help from animal welfare organisations, saying a number of dogs and cats in their community are infested with ticks.
The Cape of Good Hope SPCA issued an alert to animal owners to ensure their animal companion tick and flea management is up to date as they have seen a significant increase in tick fever related cases and deaths.
Resident, Chantel Hendricks, said they were scared for their children.
“We have a dog here at home and he has a lot of ticks. He walks around the house and lies on the ground. I have a baby here and in the morning I found a tick on the baby’s bed.
“The whole of Freedom Park is festered with ticks, and we are afraid because we have kids here who want to play on the ground. We are afraid that they can bite us and we can get sick,” Hendricks said.
Asked what help they would be offering, the City of Cape Town referred inquiries to the Cape Animal Welfare Forum.
Meanwhile residents have to wait at least another week as the Cape of Good Hope SPCA’s Belinda Abraham said they only have a planned community outreach in Freedom Park on October 29.
“We will be educating the residents on tick and flea control and we will be dipping and deworming animals as well as taking in animals for sponsored sterilisation,” she said.
Community activist and retired police officer Keith Blake said he was disappointed by the lack of assistance for the community.
“Residents sent me a voice note asking me to come help them as the whole community is infested with ticks. I immediately notified the SPCA in Grassy Park via email and their response was that residents must get the necessary insecticides. I did not like their response because these are people that are poor, where will they get the money to buy these chemicals?
“They also sent me a lot of posters via email, saying I must distribute them to the community.
“What is a pamphlet going to help these poor people who are being attacked by aliens? What we need is specialists in that community to help eradicate them,” he said.
Stellenbosch University, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dr Jantjie Taljaard, said small babies, elderly people, and people with immunodeficiencies are at higher risk of getting more severe disease from tick bites.
“When humans are bitten by an infected tick they will develop fever, headache, and muscle pains approximately one week later.
“This is often followed by a measles-like skin rash 2 to 3 days later that occurs on most of the body including the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands. It is easy to treat the condition with cheap antibiotics, but severe disease and death can rarely occur in cases that are not diagnosed and treated early enough,” Taljaard said.
Cape Times