by D. Vogt

Created on: June 21, 2010

Bedbugs can be a nasty pest in the home - and, in sufficient numbers, almost impossible to completely eradicate. However, as with all other insects that are known to feed on the blood of (potentially multiple) human beings, they would also seem to be at least theoretically capable of transmitting blood-borne diseases between people via their mouth parts.

- Bedbug Bites -

Once upon a time, the species had been driven to the verge of total eradication by DDT; after that chemical was banned for its harmful environmental effects, the bedbug population gradually rebounded, and today is once again a major public health nuisance.

Bedbugs are primarily (but not exclusively) nocturnal feeders, emerging from their hiding spots (usually in mattresses and boxsprings, but also in walls and anywhere else where small, safe crannies exist for them to take advantage of) to seek out immobile or sleeping human beings. Attracted by carbon dioxide in the breath we exhale as well as by body heat, they climb up onto beds, find a blood vessel close to the surface of the skin, and then puncture the skin with biting mouth parts in order to take their meal. As they do so, they also inject a local anaesthetic. This initially numbs the site of the blood meal, but, after several hours, often causes an intensely itchy allergic reaction and red welts. Bedbugs feed several times as they progress from larvae to adulthood, and then feed once every several days throughout their lives.

Obviously, in doing so, bedbugs don't discriminate between individual people: if there are several potential victims in the same home, they will simply feed on the first they come across. For this reason, it would seem that, like those species of mosquito that transmit malaria and West Nile virus, the common bedbug would also be capable of transmitting blood-borne viruses. In essence, the method of transmitting the disease would also be basically the same: any small blood matter left in the bedbug's mouth and penetrating parts could be injected back into subsequent victims, who could then become infected with viruses from any or all of that particular bedbug's recent previous victims.

- Risk of Disease -

On balance, however, it appears that the risk of actually contracting a disease from a bedbug is negligible. Some sources, such as the Mayo Clinic, Harvard University's School of Public Health as well as many public health departments, regularly assure people that bedbugs simply are not disease carriers. Instead,

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