this is basic public health.
They claim they can’t remove the rats and cats? have they tried rat poison and traps? but there are reports of garbage in the street, and the garbage is feeding the rats, so who is removing that?
and the US Army stopped typhus in Naples during World War II by spraying everyone and everything with DDT... and it worked. But I suspect the “greens” would go hysterical if someone tried that.
According to the article, and other sources,
they claim that they only caught a few feral cats, ..but mostly opossums.
The garbage waste is another issue, altogether.
It too is a responsibility of the municipal government, however,
since it is a reoccurring problem, it obviously is not properly being addressed,
or the population is illiterate and ignorant (use cartoons, or graphics ?).
A common sense approach, or the use of DDT, would enrage the 'greenies' in the community.