Govt Urged To Mount City-wide Anti-rat Campaign

A concern group has called on the government to step up its rat-eradication work by introducing a month-long campaign involving all 18 districts at the same time, so the rodents will not be able to run from one area to another.

The rodent problem has come under the spotlight again recently after several people were diagnosed with a strain of hepatitis E usually associated with rats.

The Alliance to Combat Rodents said on Monday that even though the government has spent more than HK$1.6 billion on rat eradication over the past decade or so, the problem has only gone from bad to worse.

A spokesman for the alliance, Jack Wong, said the “fundamental problem” is that the government is not hiring professionals to tackle the issue, noting many workers are simply street cleaners and don't know how to catch rats.

Business and Professionals Alliance lawmaker, Priscilla Leung, who has long been following up on the rodent problem in her Kowloon West constituency, said the government should embark on a territory-wide rat-eradication campaign, instead of having district-by-district campaigns at different times.

“In fact, from experts, we knew that those small animals will run from a place to another place, and they get very clever nowadays. So, if you only do the job in one district, they will just go to another district … this is not what we want to do,” she said.

Leung said she will meet Health Secretary Sophia Chan next week to discuss the matter.