{"id":869460,"date":"2026-06-15T19:24:22","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T19:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/869460\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T19:24:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T19:24:22","slug":"californian-contracts-fatal-disease-breeding-wild-rats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/869460\/","title":{"rendered":"Californian Contracts Fatal Disease &#8216;Breeding Wild Rats&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        Berkeley&#8217;s first leptospirosis death in more than a decade has health officials sounding the alarm over rats and delayed medical care. City authorities say a person living in a rat-infested RV died of the infection in May after waiting weeks, possibly months, to seek treatment; a housemate was also infected but survived after a long hospital stay, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/bayarea\/article\/berkeley-death-rat-infection-22301680.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SFGate<\/a>. Vector control teams removed nearly 200 rats from the RV before it was destroyed, and officials called the case an &#8220;extreme situation.&#8221; City manager Paul Buddenhagen <a href=\"https:\/\/berkeleyca.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/2026-06\/2026-06-10%20Public%20Health%20Update%20Addressing%20Leptospirosis%20at%20Harrison%20Street%20Encampments%20and%20Clinical%20Guidance%20for%20City%20of%20Berkeley%20Medical%20Providers.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> the pair were &#8220;trapping, feeding and breeding wild rats.&#8221;&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        The RV was parked about a mile from a homeless encampment where rat-linked leptospirosis was previously detected and linked to illness in two dogs, per the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mercurynews.com\/2026\/06\/10\/rat-borne-disease-leaves-one-dead-another-sickened-in-berkeley\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mercury News<\/a>. However, these were the first human cases of leptospirosis in Berkeley in more than a decade. In humans, the bacterial illness, spread through contact with contaminated rat urine, typically starts with flu-like symptoms and can later damage the kidneys, liver, lungs, and other organs.&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        UC San Francisco infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Chin-Hong called the death a preventable tragedy, noting &#8220;nobody should die of lepto&#8221; because standard antibiotics can treat it if caught early, per SFGate. Buddenhagen said the risk to the public remains &#8220;extremely low,&#8221; per <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/californian-dies-from-rare-disease-breeding-wild-rats-11996672\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">People<\/a>. Still, Berkeley Public Health is urging clinicians to think of leptospirosis when seeing patients with relevant exposure and symptoms, warning that unfamiliarity with the disease\u2014and patients&#8217; reluctance to seek prompt care\u2014can turn a treatable infection into a life-threatening one.&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; Berkeley&#8217;s first leptospirosis death in more than a decade has health officials sounding the alarm over rats&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":869461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[11],"tags":[18412,276,4446,210,89209,48108,93001,881,7835,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-869460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-berkeley","tag-california","tag-death","tag-health","tag-homeless-encampment","tag-infection","tag-leptospirosis","tag-public-health","tag-rats","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116755763573081935","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}