Bishalya Gautam

The rainy season has been stretched over a long time this year with downpour almost every day. This may be due to global warming and other climatic factors.

Monsoon in Nepal usually begins around mid-June and ends by the second week of September. But there is no sign of end of monsoon as we are already in mid-September. It is raining cats and dogs.

The rainy season might be the most pleasing time of the year with cool weather and enough water for irrigation. But disadvantages are also there: monsoon contaminates water and causes several water-borne diseases. Snakes come out and bite people and there are other creatures which torment people this season.

The major problem invited by this season’s rain is dengue carried by mosquitoes. Aedes aegypti is the mosquito that has been transferring dengue virus.

This virus is transmitted from a mosquito to a person but it can’t spread from person to person.

In the Terai region there are more threats from mosquito bites as compared to the hilly regions and the Kathmandu Valley.

fter mosquito, snakes are deadly threat in the Terai plains. Snakebites can result in deaths if medical care is not taken immediately.

Poisonous snakes like Indian cobra, common krait and Russell’s viper are found in the Terai region in abundance.

In the capital valley, the major problem after dengue is the irritating tiny creatures including frogs, mice, lizards and moths.

Moths also tend to bring certain problem if their wing dust gets into a person’s eyes.

These creatures are very irritating as they tend to get inside houses and pollute water. Frogs are mainly discarded for this activity.

They get into water storages and tanks and pollute them with bacteria infested faeces and urine. Frogs get everywhere due to their extreme habitable manner.

The other night a frog that all of a sudden started jumping in the bed scared me and my father a lot. It is not known how it managed to climb our bedroom of the second floor, we had to struggle hard to send it out of home.

The frog was first spotted in the ground floor but somehow it hopped its way up into the living room first and then to the bedroom.

Surprisingly, the simple task of chasing a frog ended up being too tumultous and tiring. When the cold frog went behind the cupboard while scurrying, my father had a difficult time to trace it and chase it away. But he somewhat managed to find a long bamboo piece and pulled it out of its hiding.

He was sweating as the toad played a hide and seek for almost 35 minutes.

Mice and other rodents also irritate people a lot. Mice are the supreme disease carrier in the urban areas.

Highly contagious and dangerous diseases like rabies are also transferred from the bites of rodents.

Mice in city areas go everywhere including dumping sites and sewers picking up highly passable diseases on their way.

The animals act as a host for the diseases and later transmit to people. Historically, mice are solely responsible for more deaths through outbreak of diseases like plague in Europe than all the other animals combined.