Plague fear for Bangladesh children

A bubonic plague outbreak is a real possibility for children in Bangladesh as the rat population soars out of control.

Disease and fever are already on the rise in the southeast Chittagong Hill area, where SOS Children runs several projects for children, families and young people.Many people say they have been bitten by the rats which have been terrorising the impoverished region in the far south east of Bangladesh.

Now United Nations backed scientists warn that the Bangladeshi government should step up support for health centres so they will be ready in case of an outbreak of the plague. Dubbed the Black Death, the plague killed millions in 14th century Europe. The disease, which is today treatable, is caused by bacteria from fleas carried by rats. Dhaka University zoology professor Nurjahan Sarker warned authorities must act fast to avoid an outbreak of deadly bubonic plague.” I don't think the government has understood the gravity of the crisis or figured out how to tackle such an unprecedented situation," she told Agence France-Presse news agency.

Steven Belmain, a rodent ecologist of Britain's University of Greenwich, who is in Bangladesh studying the infestation, said the rodent population was doubling every three weeks. Belmain said the rats had left some areas only after they had eaten everything they could and then had to move on. He said the risk of an outbreak of bubonic plague was high in the country of 144 million, one of the world's poorest.
Because so many crops have been eaten, food is scarce even though the UN's World Food Programme started to hand out three million dollars of emergency food supplies to in area last May, after the rat population first exploded.

The rats weigh as much as 1.5kgs (3.3lbs) and feed on bamboo forests in the hilly region. Rats breed at an alarming rate because they can have litters eight times a year after eating the bamboo blossom, which is four times more often than normal. Local folklore, according to the BBC, says that the flowering of the bamboo, resulting surge in rats and famine happens every 50 years.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children’s Villages