Emergency session of the Civil Protection Headquarters of Novi Grad Municipality: Leptospirosis epidemic exposes government negligence

(Patria) - The Municipal Civil Protection Headquarters of Novi Grad held an emergency session after information appeared in the public about the outbreak of the infectious disease “Leptospirosis,” which is transmitted by rodents. The session was attended by representatives of the Institute for Public Health of the Sarajevo Canton, prim. dr. Anisa Bajramović, head of the epidemiology unit, and dr. Anes Jogunčić, specialist in epidemiology, leader of the hygiene-epidemiology service team 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 the epidemic, and we learned about it from the media like other citizens, at the session of the headquarters, 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 had not been carried out in the Sarajevo Canton for two years.

At the session of the Civil Protection Headquarters, 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 be required to increase the frequency of municipal waste collection, if possible daily, from the settlements of Dobrinja and Alipašino Polje where cases of infection have been recorded, until the number of infection cases reaches zero.
- That KJKP Park be required to urgently mow green areas in settlements that have not yet been mowed and 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 given that all building managers carry out urgent extraordinary deratization of residential and commercial buildings, due to the confirmed outbreak of an infectious disease whose carriers are rodents, which will be repeated in several rounds in consultation with the Institute for Public Health 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 municipal economy in the Sarajevo Canton had to result, sooner or later, in the emergence of infectious diseases. In previous years, the Novi Grad Municipality was forced, even through civil protection, to organize the mowing of green areas precisely because of the appearance of rodents and snakes, with grass height reaching up to one meter.

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