Rats and rodents in the rainy season are not just a nuisance for your household but also lead to various health issues, most of them being life-threatening. The recent deaths in the United States due to hantavirus that damages your organs have brought the discussion around many conditions that rats cause. Apart from that, house rats and rodents are also carriers of multiple infectious virus and bacteria diseases. A few of them include:

Plague spreads from Yersinia pestis bacterium which spreads from flea bites, however, you can get pneumonic plague from someone who is infected. Plagues have caused deadly pandemics in the past and still exist in many countries today.

Doctors say plague infects your lymph nodes, blood, and lungs. However, it is also the most survivable and with quick antibiotic treatment, you have about a 95 per cent chance of recovering from bubonic plague. Bubonic plague makes one or more lymph nodes painful and swollen.

The affected lymph nodes are usually near where an infected flea bit you.

Salmonella infection leads to deadly diarrhoea, fever, and stomach pains. While the condition can go away on its own in a few days, it can be fatal if your body suffers too much dehydration. You can reduce your risk of salmonella with safe food handling habits and by washing your hands after touching animals.

Salmonella bacteria invade and destroys the cells that line your intestines making it hard for your body to absorb water, giving you extreme stomach cramps. Apart from that, salmonella poisoning, spread mostly by rats who nibble on food, includes high fever, nausea and vomiting, and severe headaches.

Leptospirosis is caused by bacteria present in the urine of infected rats and rodents. According to experts, leptospirosis risk often increases after a hurricane or flood when people have contact with contaminated water or soil. Statistics say more than a million people across the world get leptospirosis each year and almost 60,000 of those die from it.

The disease has flu-like symptoms which include internal bleeding and organ damage, apart from very high fever, redness in the eyes, headaches chills, and muscle aches. Doctors say leptospirosis can be treated with antibiotics.

Doctors say viral hemorrhagic fever or VHF - is a group of diseases caused by viruses that affect multiple organ systems, cause severe internal bleeding, and can be fatal. Caused by five different families of viruses, including arenaviruses, filoviruses, bunyaviruses, flaviviruses, and paramyxoviruses, it is mostly spread through rats and rodents.

It causes fever, body aches, dizziness, fatigue, headache, and rashes apart from bloody diarrhoea, pain in the chest and stomach, extremely low blood pressure, seizures, and coma.

Rat bite fever or RBF is a highly infectious disease caused by bacteria transmitted by rodents. It can be caused by infection with Streptobacillus moniliformis, Streptobacillus notomytis, or Spirillum minus. It is a serious and deadly, yet rare infection, with over 20,000-40,000 rat bites reported across the world each year. Doctors say you have up to a 10 per cent chance of getting RBF from a rat bite.

According to experts, a few symptoms of rat bite fever include headache, fever, nausea, skin rash, especially around your hands and feet, joint pain, and muscle pain. The symptoms usually appear three to 10 days after exposure to S. moniliformis bacteria.

You can help lower your risk of developing rat-bite fever with: