Emergency session of Civil Protection Novi Grad: Demands for 'Rad' and 'Park' to remove garbage and mow grass

(Patria) - The Municipal Civil Protection Staff of Novi Grad Sarajevo held an emergency session after information appeared in the public about the occurrence of the infectious disease leptospirosis, which is transmitted by rodents.

The session of the staff was attended by representatives of the Institute for Public Health of the Sarajevo Canton - Dr. Anisa Bajramović, head of the epidemiology unit, and Dr. Anes Jogunčić, specialist in epidemiology, team leader of the hygiene-epidemiological service for the municipalities of Novi Grad and Novo Sarajevo.

"Although the municipality did not receive any official information from the health institutions of the Sarajevo Canton about the outbreak of an epidemic, and we learned the information from the media like other citizens, at the staff session the representatives of the Institute for Public Health confirmed cases of this infectious disease as well as the fact that its occurrence is a consequence of irregular deratization, which has not been carried out in the Sarajevo Canton for two years.

At the session of the Civil Protection Staff, several conclusions and orders were adopted with the aim of overcoming the situation as efficiently as possible and extinguishing the epidemic as well as its causes.

Among other things, it was concluded:

- that KJKP 'Rad' is required to increase the frequency of municipal waste collection, preferably daily, from the settlements of Dobrinja and Alipašino Polje where infection cases have been recorded, until the number of infection cases reaches zero;

- that KJKP 'Park' is required to urgently mow green areas in settlements that have not yet been mowed, which prevent effective deratization of public areas carried out by the Ministry of Health under the supervision of the Institute for Public Health, through authorized companies to which this task has been assigned;

- an order was issued that all building managers carry out urgent emergency deratization of residential and commercial buildings, due to the confirmed occurrence of an infectious disease whose carriers are rodents, which will be repeated in consultation with the Institute for Public Health several times until the number of cases is reduced to zero;

- managers are also obliged to inspect and clean basement areas in collective housing buildings.

Citizens are called upon to inform the Institute for Public Health directly or through local communities about all cases where they notice rodents, so that deratization activities can be directed to the micro-location.

Unfortunately, years of neglect and the neglected state of the utility sector in the Sarajevo Canton had to sooner or later result in the occurrence of infectious diseases.

In previous years, the Municipality of Novi Grad was forced, even through civil protection, to organize the mowing of green areas precisely due to the appearance of rodents and snakes, where the grass height reached up to a meter.

Images of containers overflowing with garbage have become a daily occurrence, not only in our municipality but in the entire canton, and the fact that deratization was completely stopped for two years in the Sarajevo Canton is more than scandalous.

Life in the Sarajevo Canton with such a utility sector is becoming unbearable, and instead of improvement, the situation is getting worse year after year. The same is true in healthcare, education, and many other areas," said the head of the Municipality of Novi Grad Sarajevo, Semir Efendić, after the session.