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Sweet potatoes for bait and one-door cages – why Hong Kong’s old-style pest control methods are under fire after latest cases of rat hepatitis E infection in humans
- Team of more than 20 cleaners start disinfecting Tuen Mun estate where one patient had lived
- Outdated trapping methods and lack of support for private housing estates among complaints
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Hong Kong’s pest control teams are unable to catch rodents because they use old-style trapping methods including sweet potatoes for bait, critics said on Wednesday, a day after three new cases of the rat hepatitis E infection in humans were revealed.
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Other complaints included a lack of support for private housing estates to tackle rats.
Officials stepped up cleaning efforts on Wednesday morning at the public housing Yau Oi Estate in Tuen Mun – where a 74-year-old man infected with the virus, and who later died in hospital, had lived.
A team of more than 20 cleaners started disinfecting and hosing down the estate from 7am. District councillors and Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) officers also patrolled rodent “black spots” in the area, including Tuen Mun Park and the sides of the Tuen Mun River.
But there was no action at the private residential areas where the other two reported cases – two men, aged 81 and 67 – lived, at South Horizons in Aberdeen and in Kowloon City.
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