Rodents play a significant role in the transmission of many disease-causing pathogens to humans. They attract and harbor a wide range of ectoparasites such as mites, fleas, lice, and ticks. Each of these parasites may itself carry pathogens such as the plague bacteria transmitted by the flea, or the typhus-causing bacteria transmitted by lice and fleas. These rodents with their ectoparasited causing diseases such as plague, leptospirosis, salmonellosis, rat-bite fever, leishmaniasis, Chagas' disease, Omsk hemorrhagic fever, murine typhus and Lassa fever, Crimean Congo Hemorrhagic Fever. In the north-eastern hill region of India rodent outbreaks have been recorded since time immemorial. Present study was an attempt to see the prevalence of rodent and their ectoparasite in Kimin, Arunachal Pradesh (India). Rodents were trapped and ectoparasites were extracted, processed & identified. A total of 40 rodent traps were laid in and outside houses. The overall traps positivity rate was recorded as 20.0 per cent. A total of eight rodents were trapped with 37.5% male and 62.5% female. Rattus rattus (Linn.) was found in human residential premises while house mouse, Mus musculus (Linn.) was found inside houses. R. rattus was the prevalent species with 87.5% and M. musculus was 12.5%. After examination of rodent ear, 35 mesostigmatid mites (Laelaps sp.) were retrieved and no flea (vector of plague), lice and trombiculide mite chigger (L. deliense) (vector of scrub typhus) could be recovered. The overall infestation rate of ectoprasites was recorded as 25 per cent. Though in the present study only two species of rodent were trapped and no ectoparasite responsible for plague and scrub typhus was collected but further studies are required to investigate the presence of Yersinia pestis, and Orientia tsutsugamushi infection to assess its risks to human health.
