Hunan Province said yesterday it has taken effective measures to prevent epidemics after about two billion rats chomped through crops around Dongting Lake.

China's Ministry of Agriculture and the Hunan provincial government have allocated 900,000 yuan to eradicate the rats around Dongting, China's second biggest freshwater lake.

``It's not possible for rodent-borne diseases to break out in the lake area,'' said Chen Xiaochun, vice director of the provincial health department.

Health authorities have been watching the situation closely since the rats fled their flooded island homes and invaded 22 counties last week.

Their observations are reported daily to the provincial health department and the public.

Meanwhile, local health and disease prevention and control authorities have intensified management of raticide and pesticide, for fear they might contaminate food and water, Chen added.

No human case of rat-borne disease has been reported in Hunan since 1944.

The provincial government also ruled out widespread suspicions that rats flooded the area because one of their natural enemies -- snakes -- had been served at dinner tables.

``The Dongting Lake area is not an ideal habitat for snakes,'' said Deng Sanlong, a top forestry official in the province, ``and the only two species that inhabit the region feed largely on fish and frogs.''

He said the top enemy of the rats are hawks that spend winter in the wetland around the lake but fly away in spring.

(Shanghai Daily July 20, 2007)