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| https://nhm.org/nature/blog/black-rats-brown-rats-and-plague |
there are six lineages of black rat, however and they also probably came from Asia, and are most famous for being the rodent behind the spread of the black death:
“Black Rats are carriers of many different human diseases, including plague, typhus and leptospirosis,” says CSIRO mammal expert Dr Ken Aplin, lead author of the study.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2008-02-globetrotting-black-rat-genes-reveal.html#jCp
some attribute the decrease in plague in Europe to the fact that they discplaced the plague carrying black rat... but Wikipedia isn't sure.
The original carrier for the plague-infected fleas thought to be responsible for the Black Death was the black rat, and it has been hypothesized that the displacement of black rats by brown rats led to the decline of bubonic plague.[85] This theory has, however, been deprecated, as the dates of these displacements do not match the increases and decreases in plague outbreaks.[86]
but you can catch other diseases from them: again, Wikipedia.
brown rats may carry a number of pathogens,[76] which can result in disease, including Weil's disease, rat bite fever, cryptosporidiosis, viral hemorrhagic fever, Q fever and hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
Weil's disease is also called leptospirosis, and is a major problem here in the Philippines after flooding. People wade through shallow water, but the spirochete can enter through wounds in the skin.
it is treatable with antibiotics, but often in times of major flooding, folks don't get around to getting treatment in time: so the gov't puts out reminders about seeing a clinic or doc if you get a fever.
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