Low-skilled employees in construction sites of Male’ and several islands such as L. Gan as well as resort construction sites are commonly provided with substandard living conditions, including overcrowded apartments or lodging in unsafe and unhygienic ‘labour quarters’ often lacking adequate light, potable water, and adequate cooking and bathing facilities.
Labour quarters need to be cleaned up with the introduction of national standards, spot checks and possibly fines, and force employers into improving their labour record.
Worldwide, rats and mice spread over 35 diseases. Rodent-borne diseases are spread directly to humans through bite wounds, consuming food or water that is contaminated with rodent feces, coming in contact with surface water contaminated with rodent urine, or through breathing in germs that may be present in rodent urine or droppings that have been stirred into the air (a process known as “aerosolization”). Diseases from rodents are also spread indirectly to humans by way of ticks, mites, and fleas that transmit the infection to humans after feeding on infected rodents. In some cases, the rodents are the reservoirs (carriers) of the diseases, while in other cases the ticks, mites, or fleas act as the disease reservoirs.
