In 2014, a survey of rats in New York City conducted by Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health showed the rats carry numerous illness-causing pathogens, including bacteria that cause food poisoning ( such as salmonella and E . coli ) and dermatitis, pathogens that cause fevers ( such as Seoul hantavirus and Leptospira ), sapoviruses, cardioviruses, kobuviruses, parechoviruses, rotaviruses, and hepaciviruses, and some viruses never before seen in New York and some previously unknown to science.
