Details - Public Health Image Library(PHIL)

ID#:

14329

Caption:

This image depicts 0.5% permethrin-treated cotton, that had been bound in a chicken-wire netting. This would subsequently be collected by a rodent, and taken back to the animal’s burrow, thereby, killing fleas carried on the rodent, and within its burrow, in order to curb the spread of the bubonic plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, and the Colorado tick fever virus. Techniques, like the use of these baits, are used to control the flea populations in and around human habitations, by using the flea’s primary hosts, the rodents, as the delivery mechanism for the insecticide intended to kill the flea disease vector, through whose bite, these diseases are spread.