Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion says it is aware of re­ports of a rat in­fes­ta­tion at the El So­cor­ro South Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School and is en­gag­ing with staff and the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny Ltd (MTS) per­son­nel to as­sess the sit­u­a­tion.

The re­sponse came af­ter con­cerned par­ents high­light­ed the is­sue at a small protest out­side the school's com­pound on El So­cor­ro Road, San Juan, yes­ter­day.

The group of four par­ents said they have been mak­ing re­ports to the school su­per­vi­sor and the ed­u­ca­tion dis­trict of­fice since Oc­to­ber last year.

They point­ed to an emp­ty, over­grown lot ad­ja­cent to the school, which they be­lieve is the ro­dent colony.

"As a fel­low par­ent men­tioned, since we've been here, we saw two run across the com­pound," par­ent Michel Joseph said.

The par­ents are call­ing for the school to be closed while the land is cleared and cleaned.

Con­firm­ing that pre­ven­ta­tive bait­ing and san­i­ta­tion mea­sures were con­duct­ed by the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, the Min­istry said mit­i­ga­tion ef­forts are on­go­ing as part of rou­tine health and safe­ty pro­to­cols.

Joseph, who has two chil­dren en­rolled at the school, has kept them home for the past two weeks out of con­cern for their health.

She said any clean­ing be­fore the land is cleared would be in­ef­fec­tive, like spin­ning a top in­to mud.

"It's as if you're try­ing to put a Band-Aid on a huge wound. You have to get rid of that first be­fore do­ing any sort of bait­ing, any sort of clean­ing," she ex­plained.

An­oth­er par­ent said pro­fes­sion­als con­firmed an in­fes­ta­tion, in­clud­ing smelling rat urine in­side the build­ing, while some par­ents claim fae­ces were found in class­rooms.

She is con­cerned that oth­er par­ents may not re­alise how se­ri­ous the sit­u­a­tion is, with ro­dents now en­ter­ing class­rooms.

Some chil­dren have al­ready fall­en ill, and par­ents fear symp­toms of lep­tospiro­sis could be mis­tak­en for a com­mon cold.

The par­ents are call­ing on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and Pub­lic Health to in­ter­vene and prop­er­ly ad­dress the prob­lem, in­clud­ing clear­ing the land and re­me­di­at­ing the school while chil­dren are not on the com­pound.