EMBED More News Videos Rob Nelson has the latest details. 
 
 New York City's Health Department says it is taking steps to reduce the rat population, after one person died and two others became severely ill in the Bronx from a rare disease transmitted by rats. Health officials will also be educating tenants about the bacterial infection behind the cases, called leptospirosis.Two patients were diagnosed in December and one in February. Two of the patients recovered while one has died.The person who died is a man in his 30s, according to a city official.The Medical Examiner's office investigated and determined the cause of the man's death in December was leptospirosis. The manner of death was deemed natural.The Health Department released a statement saying, "The Health Department has identified a cluster of three cases of leptospirosis on one block in the Concourse area of the Bronx. Leptospirosis is a bacterial infection that is most commonly spread by contact with rat urine and is very rarely spread from person to person."It is the first cluster of leptospirosis cases ever identified in New York City."I want to make clear that this is a very rare infection," said New York City Health Commissioner Mary Bassett. "Since 2006, we've seen some 26 cases here in New York City."At the building in question, 750 Grand Concourse, a team from the health department worked all day long Wednesday on abatement, laying rat traps, plugging holes in the walls and pipes, disposing of improperly handled garbage, and inspecting apartments.The owner of 750 Grand Concourse, Ved Parkash, owns at least five buildings that have violations, and is 5th on the list of the city's worst landlords."Immediately when this first came to our attention on Monday, we dispatched a team here to take a look at the building and they identified a problem with rodent infestation and garbage management," said Bassett.44-year-old Braulio Balbuena Flores lived in the basement of the building and is one of the people who got the rat-borne disease, and survived.His brother said Flores spent two weeks in Lincoln Hospital.NEW YORK CITY HEALTH COMMISSIONER NEWS CONFERENCE:- Avoid contact with rats or with places where rats may have urinated.- Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after any contact with areas where rats may live.- If you cannot avoid areas where rats have been seen, or are cleaning areas where rats have been, use a solution of one part household bleach and 10 parts water to kill the leptospirosis bacteria.- Protect yourself from contact with their urine: wear rubber gloves (especially if you have any cuts or sores on your hands or arms), boots, masks and some type of eyewear.The CDC says that without treatment, Leptospirosis can lead to kidney damage, meningitis (inflammation of the membrane around the brain and spinal cord), liver failure, respiratory distress and death.Read more: https://www.cdc.gov/leptospirosis/ ||||| Photo 
 
 New York City is investigating three recent cases — one of them fatal — of a rare disease transmitted through rat urine that have occurred in the Grand Concourse neighborhood of the Bronx, according to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. 
 
 This is the first time a cluster of the cases of the disease, leptospirosis, has been identified, according to an alert issued by the department on Tuesday. From 2006 to 2016, 26 cases were reported in the city; the Bronx had the highest number, eight. 
 
 The three most recent cases occurred in the past two months. All the patients became severely sick and were hospitalized with acute kidney and liver failure, the health department said. One died as a result of an infection. The two who survived have been released from the hospital. 
 
 The sexes and ages of those infected were not available. The department did not specifically identify the location of the cluster. 
 
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 All but one of the 26 previously reported cases occurred in men. 
 
 Infections commonly occur through exposure to rat urine, which can enter the body through the eyes, nose or mouth, or through wounds and cuts in the skin, the department said. Infection can also occur through contact with infected animals, soil or food. It is rarely spread from person to person. 
 
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 Though it can be serious, the illness is treatable with common antibiotics. City agencies have taken “immediate measures” to reduce the rat population in the area and are educating tenants about symptoms and treatment, according to a city statement. 
 
 Some people who are infected may have no symptoms while others may have a fever, headache, chills, muscle ache, vomiting or diarrhea. 
 
 Health officials recommend washing hands thoroughly after contact with areas where rats may live, always wearing shoes while taking garbage to the trash compactor room, and avoiding contact with rats or places where they may have urinated. ||||| Hong Kong has been put on notice to shape up on public hygiene and get rid of rodents, after a male resident became the first person in the world to be infected with a strain of Hepatitis E previously found only in animals such as rats. 
 
 The 56-year-old who lives in a public housing estate in eastern Kowloon underwent liver transplant surgery in May last year and was tested for the virus after he displayed recurring liver function problems. 
 
 Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, a top microbiologist at Hong Kong University, told a press conference on Friday that the discovery was a “wake-up call” to improve environmental hygiene and prevent rats from breeding. 
 
 “We don’t know if in future there will be a serious outbreak of the rat Hepatitis E virus in Hong Kong,” he said. “We need to closely monitor this issue.” 
 
 He said the city’s streets were very clean after the deadly outbreak of the Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) in 2003, but public cleanliness appeared to have slipped recently. 
 
 “Back alleys now are very dirty with lots of rubbish. You can see rats that are bigger than cats,” Yuen said. 
 
 He led the team that had studied the patient for the past year and revealed initial information about the case on Thursday. He also informed authorities, including the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, which responded with a clean-up operation at Choi Wan estate where the man lives on Friday. 
 
 There is no evidence of an imminent major epidemic following the discovery of rat Hepatitis E in the patient, assured Dr Siddharth Sridhar, a clinical assistant professor from HKU’s department of microbiology involved in studying the patient. 
 
 But researchers took any new incidence of infections jumping from animals to humans very seriously. 
 
 “These kinds of unusual infections, rare infections, first instances – even one case is enough to make public health authorities and researchers very alert about the implications,” he said. 
 
 In this case, effective rodent control was key in preventing similar infections. 
 
 “Ensure there is no food for the rats, which means there is no garbage lying around that the rats can feed on,” Sridhar said. 
 
 Yuen said the patient’s condition is now “completely normal” after he was treated with ribavirin, an antiviral medication for chronic hepatitis E infections. 
 
 However, it is still not known yet how the man got infected. 
 
 Yuen said the man had a liver transplant at HKU’s Queen Mary teaching hospital in May last year, but there were no signs of hepatitis E infection in the organ donor or those who donated blood to the patient. 
 
 The researchers thought it possible that the man might have consumed contaminated food infected by rat droppings. 
 
 But the rodent infestation rate in Wong Tai Sin, near his home, was not very high last year, and Yuen wondered aloud: “Was the patient infected after being bitten by a rat without noticing?” 
 
 He said researchers needed more time to understand why the man was infected with a virus that previously only affected rats and ferrets. 
 
 He said: “Was it because after a period of time, genetic changes of the virus in the rats were sufficient enough to infect a human?” 
 
 It was also possible that the patient was more susceptible to infection because his immune system was weakened after the organ transplant. 
 
 Researchers visited the man’s home and found that his flat was next to a refuse chute, where hygiene conditions were poor. 
 
 “You could find rat droppings there,” said Yuen. “The drain outlet in the corridor could also allow easy access for rats.” 
 
 He said the environment provided favourable conditions for rats to breed. 
 
 Rodent droppings, swabs from the refuse room’s drain and floor, and previously collected rat samples in the area were tested for the virus. But only frozen samples from a rat collected by hygiene authorities in the district in 2012 were found to be infected. 
 
 The authorities on Friday responded to Yuen’s call for stepped-up action against rats by promising to do more to raise awareness of the need for good hygiene at home and in the estate. 
 
 A spokesman for the Housing Department said there had been no complaints in the past few months about rats at Choi Wan Estate although residents there said they had seen rats scurrying around in apartment blocks and in the ground-floor refuse collection area. 
 
 The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said it would hold a roadshow about cleaning operations on October 3, together with the Home Affairs Department. 
 
 A spokesman for the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said it had received 263 complaints of rodent problems in Wong Tai Sin last year, and 148 complaints in the same district in the first eight months of this year. The department said it conducted daily rodent control work, including street cleaning, poisoning and trapping rats and blocking rat holes. 
 
 From October 8 to December 7, it would hold its second citywide anti-rodent campaign and department officers had already given suggestions on how to prevent infestations to the Housing Department office in Choi Wan estate, it said. 
 
 Five viruses that can cause Hepatitis in people 
 
 Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver. In most cases, it is caused by viruses but can sometimes be caused by alcohol, drugs, chemicals or genetic diseases, though this is less common. There are five main hepatitis viruses – A, B, C, D, and E – that are of greatest concern to doctors because they can cause epidemics and death. 
 
 Hepatitis A: Present in the faeces of infected persons and most often transmitted through consumption of contaminated water or food, but also through sex practices. Infections in many cases are mild with most people making a full recovery and remaining immune to further infection. 
 
 Hepatitis B: Transmitted through exposure to infected blood, semen and other body fluids. There are vaccines to prevent it. 
 
 Hepatitis C: Mostly transmitted through exposure to infected blood. There is no vaccine for the virus. 
 
 Hepatitis D: Occurs only in those who have the Hepatitis B virus, but the dual infection can result in a more serious disease. Hepatitis B vaccines provide protection from the Hepatitis D virus. 
 
 Hepatitis E: Mostly transmitted through consumption of contaminated water or food. Hepatitis E is a common cause of virus outbreaks in the developing world; safe and effective vaccines to prevent infection have been developed but are not widely available. 
 
 Sources: World Health Organisation; Hong Kong Department of Health
– New York City rats are big, ugly, and now apparently deadly. City health authorities are investigating three cases of poisoning by rat urine, one of them fatal, the New York Times reports. The victims of leptospirosis were all in the Bronx, the first such cluster of the rare disease reported in a city infamous for its robust rodents. The health department issued an alert on Tuesday following the death of a man in his 30s. Two of the bacterial infections occurred in December and one this month, per ABC7. All three people were hospitalized with acute kidney and liver failure, and two have recovered and been released. In the past 10 years, leptospirosis has sickened 26 people in the city, eight of them in the Bronx. The outbreak prompted the health department to take steps to curb the garbage-trolling rodents and educate residents about the risk. Infections are usually spread when rat urine comes in contact with the eyes, nose, mouth, or through a cut in the skin. People were urged to avoid contact with rats, obviously, but also to clean rodent hot spots with a bleach solution while wearing gloves, boots, mask, and protective eyewear. At an apartment building where one of the three was sickened, residents on Wednesday sought help from the city in having a court-appointed representative take over operations from their landlord, reports DNA Info. "We stand with the tenants," said a statement from Mayor DeBlasio that cited "persistent problems" at the building. (Pet rats were blamed for an outbreak of this rare virus.)