Rats run amok at Falmouth Market

WESTERN BUREAU:

An unhealthy situation has developed at the Falmouth Market in Trelawny, where rats are rummaging through the food items on sale.

“We need a Pied Piper here to rid the market of these rats,” suggested butcher John Mason. “This must happen before leptospirosis joins COVID-19 as a pandemic.”

Pointing to the huge piles of garbage at the western side of the market, Mason is appealing to the authorities to take the steps required to rid the area of the rodents.

“The collection of the garbage is sporadic and this has resulted in a breeding ground for the rats,” admitted Garnett Edmonson of the National Solid Management Authority (NSWMA), although he blamed some of the vendors for failing to properly dispose of the garbage they generate.

“Skips are placed there for the garbage to be placed in, but the vendors refuse to bag their garbage properly. They throw the garbage anywhere and expect the workers on the truck to clean up after them,” said Edmonson. “The plan is to have drums placed at strategic positions and try to educate the vendors of the need to dispose of their garbage properly.”

Vendor Sonia Holmes said the rats were making her life miserable as, on occasions, she is forced to dispose of food items they have bitten.

“The rats have bitten up my cabbage, Irish potato, tomato, and pumpkin. I recently had to throw away a 16-pound pumpkin and suffer all the loss after paying $2,000 for my stall,” Holmes told The Gleaner.

Our news team observed piles of garbage, which were being blamed for the rat infestation.

“There is supposed to be two power washers to wash out the market,” an NSWMA worker, who asked not to be identified, said. “A promise to have the fire department wash out the market on a regular basis is not happening.”

Officials of the Trelawny Municipal Corporation were tight-lipped when contacted, directing The Gleaner to Mayor Collen Gager, who did not answer our calls.

Report illnesses

Director of veterinary public health in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Dr Linnette Peters, is urging the public to report incidents of food-borne illnesses is crucial to this goal.

“We want to continue to improve on the reporting of food-borne illnesses, as we recognise that this is a weakness that persons who may have eaten and within hours they have diarrhoea, they do not necessarily associate their sickness with the consumption of food,” she added.

Peters noted that the gathering of this islandwide data from the reports will also assist the ministry to respond with appropriate measures.

“If this information is reported to the ministry, we would really like to get a better picture of the food-borne illnesses status in Jamaica, so that we can plan and implement programmes accordingly,” she said.

“We have sites all across the country and all the clinics and health centres are equipped with public health nurses that a report can be made to. Samples can also be taken by health personnel so that the cause of the diarrhoea can be identified and we would be able to detect and acknowledge these reports, so the health centres are the main sites at which these are detected,” she said.

editorial@gleanerjm.com