Beijing, Jan 26: China has developed a new type of contraceptive targeting rats even as a link is being established between the rodents and the first Sars case this winter on the mainland. "Only one gram of such contraceptive can sterilise 100 rats," Ma Lin, the scientist who developed the pill, said in Chengdu, capital of southwest Sichuan province. The new contraceptive, developed by the Sichuan provincial diseases prevention and control centre, has won the go-ahead from provincial sci-tech and health authorities to begin mass production soon after the spring festival season, a popular news agency reported. The contraceptive, which baits with different tastes, from apple and fishmeal to sesame, all believed to be favoured by mice, stops the male rodents from producing sperm and does little harm to humans or livestock, said professor Wang Qiuzhi with Sichuan provincial diseases prevention and control centre. Wang said rats sterilised with the new contraceptive would still keep their territories within their population and disturb the entire population's reproduction order. "We can easily keep the rat population at a low density level since the rodents will keep their mortality rate while their birth rate is much lower," he said. The development of the contraceptive came as Guangdong province in south China began earlier this month a mass culling of civet cats and launched a special campaign to exterminate rats and other pests that some scientists believed could carry virus of the deadly respiratory illness.
Bureau Report