Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Late-night legend David Letterman has been joking about the size of New York City rats for years; however, a new study from Columbia University researchers has found that the disease threat posed by these hulking rodents is no laughing matter.
Published in the journal mBio, the study found the rats in New York City are hosting a number of deadly pathogens including E. Coli, Salmonella and the Seoul Hantavirus. The study represents the first time that Hantavirus has been documented in the city.
Study author Cadhla Firth, a researcher at Columbia’s Center for Infection and Immunity during the research, said humans in close proximity with rats could be infected in a number of ways – including rat saliva, feces and urine.
“New Yorkers are constantly exposed to rats and the pathogens they carry, perhaps more than any other animal,” Firth said. “Despite this, we know very little about the impact they have on human health.”
To attain their findings, researchers tested over 130 rats using screening methods developed by the Center for Infection and Immunity. The technique was used because it could detect both known and unknown pathogens.
In addition to finding the first evidence of Hantavirus in New York, the study also uncovered 18 previously-unknown viruses, including two rat hepatitis viruses: dubbed NrHV-1 and NrHV-2. While these viruses are somewhat distant from hepatitis C, which infects humans, they do replicate in the animal’s liver – like hepatitis C.
Image Above: This image shows rats eating takeout in a New York City park where scientists the Center for Infection and Immunity trapped the animals to test for the pathogens they carry. Credit: Center for Infection and Immunity, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Study author Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a director at the Center for Infection and Immunity, noted that the discovery of these rat viruses is important for research purposes.
“It’s a lot of new viruses,” Lipkin told ABC News. “With the loss of the chimpanzee model for hepatitis C, the availability of an animal model that has fidelity to the human model is extremely important to efforts to develop drugs and vaccines.”
Lipkin said the study began as a series of conversations with his late colleague Joshua Lederberg, a molecular biologist and Nobel laureate. The two men talked about looking at New York City for a case study in how a pathogen might cross over from an animal population to a human population – unleashing a massive outbreak.
“It started as a biodefense initiative,” Lipkin said.
“Rats are sentinels for human disease,” he added. “They’re all over the city; uptown, downtown, underground. Everywhere they go, they collect microbes and amplify them. And because these animals live close to people, there is ample opportunity for exchange.”
Having discovered more than 600 viruses during his career, Lipkin regularly advocates for continual monitoring of the urban rat population, as well as research on humans to determine how an animal can pass disease into the general population.
Recently, Vice News reported on the resurgence of a rat-borne pathogen that decimated human populations throughout history: Yersinia pestis, the bacteria behind the bubonic plague. The pathogen and the disease its causes have recently ravaged parts of Madagascar, where unsanitary conditions attracts rats – and with them disease.
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