ARTICLE - PEST CONTROL

American pest control companies are looking to improve pest control in Haiti post-earthquake. They will have a difficult task ahead of them. I saw a couple of articles about the government requesting assistance and advice from american pest control specialists.

The 1st article talks about seeing a goat munching on the bushes in front of Hopital La Paix. Not only does the goat munch on bushes. He patrols the halls. This goat is a special goat. He is a handicapped goat with only one eye. I took a picture of the goat while at the hospital one day (this photo was taken in November 2007).

Mice is another rodent that is plentiful here in Port-au-Prince. This photo shows the harvest of mice caught in the house in one day here at Coram Deo on one of our "mouse hunts". Our dog and our feet are our "pest control tools" here at Coram Deo!

Another pest is tarantulas. No advice is given on how to deal with these bugs. Hopefully one day someone comes up with a way to get rid of all the bugs, mosquitoes and flies! Below are 2 articles on "battling vermin".

U.S. PEST CONTROL EXPERTS HELP BATTLE VERMIN IN HAITI

(Raleigh News and Observer) - By Martha Quillin

PORT-AU-PRINCE - Relief workers and pest-control experts want to ensure that people who survived one of the world's biggest natural disasters are not brought down by tiny insects in its aftermath.

Samaritan's Purse, a Christian organization headquartered in Boone, N.C. is building temporary shelter communities on a model it hopes will discourage infestation. The pest-control experts plan to work with Haiti's major hospitals on basic methods of keeping out bugs.

Both are trying to reduce insect-borne diseases that could easily spread in the crowded conditions resulting from Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake.

Major disasters -- earthquakes, floods, tsunamis -- are often followed by new threats to public health. Where water and sanitation are compromised and survivors are pressed together into tight spaces, disease can magnify the tragedy. After flooding in Bangladesh in 2004, a reported 17,000 people developed a stomach illness blamed on E. coli.

"Flies and mosquitoes are our biggest concern," said Greg Baumann of Raleigh as he left L'Hopital Universitaire de la Paix on a government-led tour.

Baumann and Joe Hope of Bayer Environmental Science in Clayton, N.C. were part of a 14-member delegation from the National Pest Management Association that went to Haiti for a three-day visit. They toured hospitals, tent cities and the Port-au-Prince landfill and trash-hauling facilities to see what pests present the largest threat.

Rats and mice may thrive in the trash-strewn streets and in piles of rubble that remain four months after the earthquake, but flies and mosquitoes have the greatest potential to cause harm. Flies can transmit E. coli, salmonella and staphylococcus bacteria, while mosquitoes can spread malaria and dengue fever.

The Haitian government, inefficient before the earthquake, has been overwhelmed since. A travel advisory issued by the U.S. State Department in March warned that basic services are not being provided.

One of those is regular trash collection.

Baumann, vice president of technical services for the National Pest Management Association, said that the group learned that the city has only 70 trash trucks, and 30 of those are inoperable, mostly because their tires have been ruined by driving through the chasms and debris in the streets.

With spring rains and hurricane season coming, the government has begun to dig trash out of the drainage ditches that line the roads to prevent flooding and mosquito infestations. But piles of plastic bottles, discarded car parts and other detritus sit on the roadsides waiting collection.

The insect problem is so widespread and the Haitian government so strained, the association has decided for now just to try to help the hospitals, Baumann said. In the next two weeks, he said, the group will have a plan on how to conduct educational campaigns in seven major Port-au-Prince hospitals.

At L'Hopital Universitaire de la Paix last week, an unattended goat munched bushes outside the front door. Trash overflowed from a large bin in the parking lot. Inside, Baumann said, flies came and went through unscreened windows in the surgical and maternity wards. At another hospital, he said, used syringes get tossed into nearby woods.

Hospitals, understaffed and undersupplied, can't afford to buy new screens for all their windows or bags for their trash. But they may be able to get rid of standing water, cut the grass that grows knee-high around buildings and take other steps to discourage insects, Baumann said.