Do Rats Actually Bite Humans? A Detailed Explanation
Rats are also known as mice, stink rats, field mice, house rats, rice mice, kanjing, laochong, and so on. They are rodents of the family Muridae in the order Rodentia, class Mammalia. They have strong vitality, exist in huge numbers, reproduce extremely quickly, and have very strong adaptability. They will eat almost anything and can live just about anywhere. Let us take a look below at whether rats bite humans!
Do Rats Bite Humans?
Rats do bite humans. Rats will certainly bite humans, but it generally does not happen often. Rats cannot stand the light, and as the saying goes, when they come out everyone shouts to beat them, which means rats generally run away when they see people. However, a cornered dog will jump over the wall, and a rat pushed to desperation may bite as well. If you do not want rats to come, first pay attention to environmental sanitation and cleanliness, and second store the food in your home as much as possible in places rats cannot reach, and also reduce snacks as much as possible.
Is a Rat Bite Poisonous?
A rat bite is not poisonous. Although rats are not poisonous, their teeth are very dirty and the chance of infection is very high. The main diseases they transmit include plague, epidemic hemorrhagic fever, leptospirosis, and so on. They often appear in sewers, toilets, kitchens, clutter piles, garbage dumps, and other places, moving back and forth between bacteria-carrying places and clean places, and spreading pathogens through their feet, body hair, and stomach contents.
What Should You Do If Bitten by a Rat?
1. Rinse the wound with alcohol: After being bitten, the first reaction is disinfection treatment. Generally, if the wound is not treated, the incidence rate is only 2 to 4%, and after disinfection it is even lower. So after being bitten, before the virus infects you, use alcohol to destroy it. Medical alcohol has the best disinfecting effect. You can find this kind of alcohol at any small pharmacy. If the wound is very small and only a layer of skin is broken, you only need to wipe it with a cotton swab. If the wound is relatively deep, you can pour alcohol onto the wound to rinse it.
2. Get an injection at the hospital: General infectious diseases all have a certain incubation period, and getting an injection before the disease onset is useful. Generally, what is injected is serum. The price is relatively expensive, about 200 yuan per injection.
3. Monitor body temperature at all times: Once you have a fever, you should suspect that you may be infected, and in that case you should go to the hospital for treatment as soon as possible. If your body temperature does not rise within a week, you can relax.
4. Do not become overly exhausted: It is not that once a virus enters your body you will definitely become ill. You still have a final line of defense——resistance. Pay attention to resting more, which can improve your resistance.
5. Prevent being bitten a second time: There are many ways to eliminate rats, and one green method is to use a mousetrap. Moreover, when a mousetrap catches a rat, the rat will let out a miserable scream, and when other rats hear the scream of their own kind, they will stay away from that place. This is a kind of learning ability in rats.