News Monday, September 2, 2013
www.guardianonline.co.nz
Ashburton Guardian 7
■ HEPATITIS A
Man’s concerns fall on deaf ears By SuSan SandyS
susan.s@theguardian.co.nz
A Methven farmer is concerned the girlfriend of a former employee might have contracted hepatitis, but warnings to health workers have fallen on deaf ears. The farmer told the Guardian that one of his former agricultural exchange workers on his property had informed him he had been born with hepatitis, and was a carrier of the disease. The teenager went back to Europe in May, but had a girlfriend from Mid Canterbury before he left. The farmer wanted to let the girlfriend, who was now living out of the district and whose contact de-
tails he did not have, know that she should be tested for the disease. He went to the Methven Medical Centre to inquire about health authorities passing this information on, but was told because of the Privacy Act they could not contact the girlfriend. He said he had only thought about letting the girlfriend know about the possibility of her having contracted the disease after recent publicity on a Hepatitis A epidemic in Ashburton. He had not previously realised how highly contagious the illness was. He did not know what type of hepatitis his farmworker had had. He said it seemed ridiculous that privacy laws stopped the relaying of
such information. “It’s a notifiable disease, and yet they can’t sort it out. If we get foot and mouth on the farm here, we would be in strife and everyone would have to find out about it,” he said. A CDHB spokesperson yesterday told the Guardian that the farmer should get in contact with his former employee and relay his concerns. A GP could not phone someone suspected to be a sexual partner of someone with an illness and tell them to get tested. It was up to the person in the relationship to let that person know they may have an infectious illness.
THE FACTS Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver, and the three main types of viral hepatitis are A, B and C. Sometimes mothers with Hepatitis B or C can pass the virus on to their babies. ■ Hepatitis A – spread when a person ingests faecal matter—even in microscopic amounts—from an infected person. ■ Hepatitis B – spread when body fluids—such as semen or blood—from a person infected with the Hepatitis B virus enter the body of someone who is not infected. ■ Hepatitis C - is spread through contact with the blood of an infected person, primarily through sharing needles, syringes, or other injection drug equipment.
■ PEST CONTROL
A black fronted tern (left) and wrybill (right) nest in the Ashburton River.
Photos Dave Murray
Operation to trap Ashburton River pests By SuSan SandyS
susan.s@theguardian.co.nz
Trapping of pests in the Ashburton River will help prevent river birds from getting bulldozed off their nests by hungry hedgehogs this coming season. Environment Canterbury runs an annual control operation targeting hedgehogs, mustelids, feral cats and rodents, and will begin setting up traps and erecting signs this week. Since 2003 when the operation began, there have been 464 hedgehogs, 291 mustelids, and 276 feral cats caught and killed. Southern biosecurity team leader Brent Glentworth said many saw hedgehogs as a harmless introduced species, however, they were in fact a serious threat to braided river birds. “A tern isn’t going to be able to persuade a prickly hedgehog from bulldozing its way under her to get to her
eggs,” Mr Glentworth said. He warned Ashburton River walkers to keep their dogs on leads throughout the pest control operation. The main risk to canines was anticoagulent rodent bait which would be laid in bait stations throughout the area. Traps would include a DOC150 which was a wooden tunnel only big enough for weasels, stoats and ferrets, with a gauge at each end. Food bait was placed inside and when the animal put its foot on a plate it released a spring, causing a plate to come down and crush its head. The other type of trap was a sentinel - a yellow plastic box with a bar which comes down and breaks the neck of feral cats and smaller animals which have entered it. The traps were humane and killed their victims quickly. “When we started we were aiming at helping black fronted tern and wrybill,
but the operation has spin-offs for all of the braided riverbed birds.” This included the endemic and critically endangered black billed gull, thousands of which have this week taken up residence in the river around the State Highway 1 bridge. Other pests to have been targeted in the past included possums and black backed gulls, but they would not be part of the control operation this year. Possums had been killed via encapsulated cyanide, while about 900 black backed gulls in the upper reaches of the South Ashburton River were poisoned with alpachloralose in 2003, 2005 and 2011. Black backed gulls, despite being native to New Zealand, were also present in other countries around the world and preyed on endemic braided riverbed nesting species as well as competing for nesting space.
Traps to be set this week Trap setting will begin this week in two sections of the Ashburton River - a lower section of about 920 hectares running 9.5 kilometres downstream from the State Highway 1 bridge, and an upper site of about 560 hectares running along 7.5 kilometres of riverbed on the south branch of the river between Blowing Point and Buicks Bridge. Signs will be placed at control locations advising the public of what is taking place, and people are reminded to keep dogs under control in these areas. The work is carried out by a contractor, with assistance from volunteers.