public health update<\/a> to the city council Wednesday.<\/p>\nLeptospirosis is commonly carried by rats globally, and while cases among people are rare, the bacterial disease can be transmitted to humans through the urine of an infected rat.<\/p>\n
The human cases in Berkeley were confirmed last month, Buddenhagen said in the update.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth individuals lived together in a recreational vehicle in which they had been trapping, feeding and breeding wild rats,\u201d he said \u201cIn addition, the vehicle was severely infested with wild rats that were not in cages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Buddenhagen said the RV was parked about a mile from Harrison Street, where rats and two dogs living in and around homeless encampments tested positive for leptospirosis in December.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe individuals fell sick, but they did not seek medical care for weeks and possibly months,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Firefighters took the couple to an area hospital, where one of them died. The other recovered after receiving treatment.<\/p>\n
Alameda County Vector Control laid traps inside the RV and in the immediate vicinity, Buddenhagen said. After nearly 200 rats were removed, the RV was towed and destroyed.<\/p>\n
Buddenhagen said the city is taking steps to prevent additional cases in humans and dogs, including targeted outreach to homeless encampments, debris removal and regular trapping and testing of rats.<\/p>\n
The general risk to the public remains \u201cextremely low,\u201d Buddenhagen said, adding that the bacteria associated with leptospirosis cannot survive in typical dry, clean properties.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt requires constant moisture, standing water or heavy rodent infestations to pose a threat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Check back for updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERKELEY \u2014 One person died and another fell ill after contracting a bacterial disease from wild rats they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[10832,65007,3805,8713,2356,1915,97,252,253,58246,65005,3,87257],"class_list":["post-697832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-alameda-county","tag-bacterial-disease","tag-bay-area","tag-berkeley","tag-california","tag-east-bay","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-homeless-encampment","tag-leptospirosis","tag-news","tag-rat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}