This story has picked up a lot oftraction and reminds us that the lowly, long forgotten bed bug is a pretty goodvector of disease transmission. Theycertainly have the time to make an impact whereas a mosquito is into short hitand run attacks thus limiting their effect.
We certainly need to study theirreal effectiveness if these results are any indication of their role.
In the meantime, the war on bedbugs will continue with increased energy. Removal remains the best option, although I would like to see properozone treatment fully implemented to cleanse living environments. The surprising recovery of bed bugpopulations comes as a surprise and it is hard to attribute a creditable causeto that because all proposed causes have always been with us.
Study finds new bedbug worry
A finding of a dangerous, drug-resistant bacteria in bedbugs in westernCanada could raise concernsin U.S.
By Alex Brandon, AP
Canadian scientists detected MRSA bacteria in three bedbugs from Vancouver
The actual findings of the study, however, are less frightening thanthey might initially sound.
"It's not time to push the panic button. It's a very smallstudy," said Marc Romney, one of the study's authors and a medicalmicrobiologist at St. Paul 's Hospital in Vancouver
Doctors at the inner-city hospital had noticed two things happening intheir neighborhood— a boom in bedbugs and a boom in cases of MRSA, or methicillin-resistantStaphylococcus aureus, a bacterial infection highly resistant to someantibiotics.
To see whether there was a connection, the researchers took fivebedbugs that patients had brought in and crushed and analyzed them.
The researchers found MRSA on three of them. On the other two theyfound VRE — vancomycin-resistant enterococcus faecium, a less dangerous form ofantibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Bedbugs, known to scientists at cimicidae, are small parasitic insectsthat feed on human or animal blood.
Their bites can cause itching, red welts and can lead to excessivescratching which can break the skin. They are not known to spread disease.
Since 1995, bedbugs have experienced an upsurge in growth in many urbanareas, invading apartment buildings, hotels and dormitory rooms. Theinfestations have led to almost-hysterical fear in some neighborhoods.
Romney said it is not clear whether the bacteria originated with thebedbugs or the bugs picked them up from people who were already infected.
Both germs are often seen in hospitals. And experts have been far moreworried about nurses and other health care workers spreading the bacteria thaninsects, Romney said, which is why the finding is disturbing, if inconclusive.
The possibility exists that if an infected bedbug were to find its wayonto the skin of a human who already had bites and had broken skin from scratching,the infection could be transferred.
Not that the researchers found evidence of this.
"It's an intriguing finding" that needs to be furtherresearched, Romney said.
He said he has been swamped with phone calls from the United States because ofthe growing concern about bedbugs.
The study was published Wednesday in Emerging Infectious Diseases,a publication of the U.S.
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