Can Bed Bugs Carry Disease?
One seemingly unanswered question about bed bugs is whether or not they can carry disease.
It is unanswered because it is a complicated question.
In most cases right now, public health departments consider that the bugs transferring a disease is impossible, hence their usual classification of the bugs as a public nuisance rather than a public health danger.
The question though, as far as health departments are concerned, appears to be split into two definite parts.
First, do the bugs actually carry disease? Second, can they transmit disease? It may seem like a very fine line but there is a distinct difference between the two questions.
And the answer is based on how science generally look at these questions.
Science is very strict when it uses certain terms and "transmits disease" is certainly one of those terms.
The bug's do "carry disease" in that it is generally accepted that they will retain any disease picked up from their host's blood in their bodies.
Yet to date, no study has proven that those diseases get back out of the bug and into a new victim when it feeds again.
This conclusion seems to indicate that, unlike mosquitoes or ticks, these pests do not then transmit any of the organisms that can cause disease in humans.
When people talk about the concern of transmission it seems to involve more the fluid that is stored in it than the bug itself being infested.
They ask the question about whether, if a bed bug is crushed, deliberately or by accident, does the fluid that it carries have the possibility of carrying disease to a new host? There was even one study where infected fluid(blood) was injected into some rabbits.
The rabbits then caught the disease from the host.
But that only happened because there was a man in a white coat and a syringe transferring the blood.
So, can this happen in a normal living environment? That seems to be the real question.
Another point is that it seems that most of the bugs will feed with a single host as long as that host remains available.
But if they are forced to find a new host because the old one moves or they are forced to move because of treatments the question arises again.
Bottom Line The good news is that the bottom line still appears to be that while in normal situations the bugs will not transmit disease they can still carry it.
So, if for no reason other reason than that, if you have an infestation it should be exterminated as quickly as possible.
It is unanswered because it is a complicated question.
In most cases right now, public health departments consider that the bugs transferring a disease is impossible, hence their usual classification of the bugs as a public nuisance rather than a public health danger.
The question though, as far as health departments are concerned, appears to be split into two definite parts.
First, do the bugs actually carry disease? Second, can they transmit disease? It may seem like a very fine line but there is a distinct difference between the two questions.
And the answer is based on how science generally look at these questions.
Science is very strict when it uses certain terms and "transmits disease" is certainly one of those terms.
The bug's do "carry disease" in that it is generally accepted that they will retain any disease picked up from their host's blood in their bodies.
Yet to date, no study has proven that those diseases get back out of the bug and into a new victim when it feeds again.
This conclusion seems to indicate that, unlike mosquitoes or ticks, these pests do not then transmit any of the organisms that can cause disease in humans.
When people talk about the concern of transmission it seems to involve more the fluid that is stored in it than the bug itself being infested.
They ask the question about whether, if a bed bug is crushed, deliberately or by accident, does the fluid that it carries have the possibility of carrying disease to a new host? There was even one study where infected fluid(blood) was injected into some rabbits.
The rabbits then caught the disease from the host.
But that only happened because there was a man in a white coat and a syringe transferring the blood.
So, can this happen in a normal living environment? That seems to be the real question.
Another point is that it seems that most of the bugs will feed with a single host as long as that host remains available.
But if they are forced to find a new host because the old one moves or they are forced to move because of treatments the question arises again.
Bottom Line The good news is that the bottom line still appears to be that while in normal situations the bugs will not transmit disease they can still carry it.
So, if for no reason other reason than that, if you have an infestation it should be exterminated as quickly as possible.
Source...