Disease Caused by Rat Urine Surged in New York City to Record Levels during 2023
There were 24 cases of leptospirosis in the city in 2023, higher than in any prior year. 2024 is already shaping up to be another big year in the Big Apple for infections.
Between the crime, illegal immigrants, and the anti-Israel demonstrations, it’s a really tough time for New York City residents.
Thanks to rats, life is getting tougher. The city Health Department has just warned that in 2023 rat-related sickness soared to the highest level in a single year.
The Health Department is warning of a worrisome increase in the number of infectious leptospirosis cases that come from contact with rat urine.
“Not only are rodents unsightly and can traumatize your day, but they’re a real health-related crises,” Mayor Eric Adams said.
Last year was a record year for rat disease. From 2001 to 2020, New York City was averaging just three cases of human leptospirosis per year. That jumped to 24 cases last year and there have been six cases so far this year.
Officials are worried because it often comes from handling trash bags or bins containing food waste. If not treated it can cause kidney failure, meningitis, liver damage and respiratory distress. In all, six people have died. So the city will start by mounting an education campaign.
Leptospirosis was already a significant problem along the East Coast in 2021, when I covered it for Legal Insurrection.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), humans can become infected with leptospirosis through contact with urine (or other body fluids, except saliva) from infected animals or contact with items contaminated with infected bodily fluids. If not caught early and treated with antibiotics, the disease can be debilitating for several weeks.
The time between a person’s exposure to a contaminated source and becoming sick is 2 days to 4 weeks. Illness usually begins abruptly with fever and other symptoms. Leptospirosis may occur in two phases:
- After the first phase (with fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, vomiting, or diarrhea) the patient may recover for a time but become ill again.
- If a second phase occurs, it is more severe; the person may have kidney or liver failure or meningitis.
The illness lasts from a few days to 3 weeks or longer. Without treatment, recovery may take several months.
Clearly, the leaders of NYC had other priorities than dealing with the ever-expanding rat population since then.
This looks to be a banner year for leptospirosis in the Big Apple. A majority of those infected are men.
There were 24 cases of leptospirosis in the city in 2023, higher than in any prior year, according to the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
However, in the first quarter of this year alone, there have already been six to date.
“For comparison, the average number of locally acquired cases during 2021 to 2023 was 15 per year, and 3 cases per year during 2001 to 2020,” health officials said. “This year, 6 cases have been reported as of April 10, 2024.”
“Among the 98 locally acquired cases reported from 2001 to 2023, the median case age was 50 years (range 20 to 80 years), usually male (94%) and, reported most often from the Bronx (37), followed by Brooklyn (19), Manhattan (28), Queens (10), and Staten Island (4),” said the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
Meanwhile, what solution are “the experts” offering for rat control in NYC? Rodent birth control.
New York lawmakers are proposing rules to humanely drive down the population of rats and other rodents, eyeing contraception and a ban on glue traps as alternatives to poison or a slow, brutal death.
Politicians have long come up with creative ways to battle the rodents, but some lawmakers are now proposing city and statewide measures to do more.
In New York City, the idea to distribute rat contraceptives got fresh attention in city government Thursday following the death of an escaped zoo owl, known as Flaco, who was found dead with rat poison in his system.
City Council Member Shaun Abreu proposed a city ordinance Thursday that would establish a pilot program for controlling the millions of rats lurking in subway stations and empty lots by using birth control instead of lethal chemicals. Abreu, chair of the Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, said the contraceptives also are more ethical and humane than other methods.
I hope the proposed birth control approach is successful. I fear that unless the situation changes, it’s just a matter of time before other rat-borne diseases begin appearing in New York City.
Interestingly, the most recent case of bubonic plague reported in the metropolis was in 2002, when a couple from New Mexico (who were infected before arriving) came on a visit to the city.
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Comments
I guess the leadershit of New Joke want to decrease the surplus population.
Yeah. Ain’t that a pisser.
Now when we call NYC a third-world shithole, we can defend it literally.
FWIW. another, less common, Rat borne illness is Haverhill (Hayv-rill) Fever.
Transmission by bite or infected urine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haverhill_fever
Maybe the communists outght to try not being filthy pieces of garbage. But then they couldn’t be communists.
OK, I don’t believe it. I suspect the number is being deliberately understated to avoid the reputation of a rat-based plague center. 1) Before the invasion of less than totally modern westernized invaders, New York City was full of literal street people living, eating, sleeping, and performing every bodily function on the sidewalk. And rats are far from a new thing in NYC and probably there are more of them than people. 2) The ongoing invasion from the south has multiplied the number of street people repeatedly AND they are not exactly improving city sanitation. 3) Rats multiply rapidly in the absence of countermeasures, and ain’t none of them housebroke.
I’m figuring there are a lot more cases being concealed, because if nothing else these are Leftists in charge and they lie reflexively. I admit to amusement at the prospect of them trying to use rat contraceptives instead of killing the rats though.
Why am I reminded of a movie scene with the line, “Bring out your dead!”?
Subotai Bahadur
“I admit to amusement at the prospect of them trying to use rat contraceptives instead of killing the rats though.”
It’s all the Supreme Court’s fault, for overturning Rodent v. Wade.
How long til children get ahold of these tempting candies the city will be leaving all over?
Next up on tiktok: the Rat Pill Challenge.
So much of the country is now third -world.
The Third World is pulling ahead so fast, that by the end of the year, they may actually finish First.
We’re sending hundreds of billions overseas to secure the borders of other countries while our biggest cities are overflowing with human feces and rat urine.
I’m no happier than you are about our money (Federal) being spent overseas.
But. The issue of rat byproducts in the streets of various cities is a local problem. It is not for the taxpayers of Greeneville Tennessee to fund a solution for New York City’s sanitation program, just like it should not be the taxpayers of Llano Texas to subsidize passenger trains running from Los Angeles to San Diego.
The rats should be encouraged to practice abstinence.
When my daughter was living in Manhattan a few years ago she was complaining to me about the rats. Because I thought she had to be exaggerating I insisted on photos. Lord, they were on windowsills, doorsteps, streets and in alleyways. It was stunning.
NYC rats know how to navigate the traps, but the glue traps, when strategically placed, work well on the smaller ones. The larger ones trapped on the glue can recover and escape with the trap (probably a trophy to show the others). So maybe the birth control is the way to go. Yuck the city is just disgusting !
Are those pro-Hamas demonstrators pissing in the streets on top of everything else?
The history book on the decline and fall of the American Empire will include a citation to this blog post.
Cat ladies.
Cat ladies with their ubiquitous spay and neuter centers–which are all over NYC– are killing one of the rats main predators.
And have been doing so for decades.