Chinanews, Changsha, July 13 – After two weeks of hard efforts, workers have finally brought the rat infestation occurring in Dongting Lake under control. The water quality in rat-infested areas remains good. However, the bodies of the poisoned rats that have not been properly buried might pollute the environment nearby, said workers from the Hunan Provincial Sanitation Supervision and Management Office.A team comprising medical experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Prevention and Control and the Hunan Provincial Disease Prevention and Control Center recently arrived in Yiyang, a city that has mostly suffered from rats damage, to direct the work to fight against rats and to prevent the outbreak of rat diseases. So far, there are no reports about human beings being affected by rat diseases.“The water quality in rat-infested areas remains good. At present, farmers living in these areas either drink tap water or water pumped from deep wells. As long as they don’t drink the water directly from lowlands on the surface grounds, they will remain safe, ”said Mr. Zhang, director of the Hunan Provincial Disease Prevention and Control Center, who had just come from Binghu Village, where rat infestation was most serious.He emphasized that the issue that needed to be concerned about most now is that the poisoned rats that have not been buried in time, might pollute the environment. These rats, when eaten by other animals, might cause a long-term negative impact to the biological chains in nature, Director Zhang said.Although the infestation of the rats, called microtus fortis Buechner in scientific terms, have basically been brought under control, it's necessary to know that the water level in Dongting Lake has not exceeded the 30-meter mark. A large number of rats still inhabit the marshes near the lake. Right now, since the water level of the Dongting Lake has begun to drop, many rats have moved to other places. Once the water level of the Dongting Lake rises again, these rats will return to infest the area, said Cheng Haibo, director of the Hunan Provincial Bureau of Agriculture.