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Bedbugs spread misery, not disease, study finds

CHICAGO – Bedbugs may be a growing nuisance, lurking in mattresses and other hiding places until emerging to seek blood for their meal, but their bites do not appear to transmit disease, researchers said yesterday.

Resistant to many pest control efforts, the hardy pest is spreading to hotels, homes, subways and movie theatres.

"Five-star hotels are just as susceptible as little cheap ones. People bring them in with their stuff. The real problem is people taking them home ... because they're so difficult to get rid of," said Jerome Goddard, a Mississippi State University entomologist who wrote a report with a colleague on the topic in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Goddard said there has been an "explosion" of bedbug infestations.

"It started in hostels and hotels, but now it's in apartments and dormitories – in houses," he said. "And it's started to get in really weird places like movie theatres and subways ... ships, ferries, all kind of places."

Many people do not notice the bites and have no skin reaction. But some develop itchy bumps or ugly blisters, and a rare few have allergic reactions like asthma attacks.

Goddard sought to dispel suggestions he found in some earlier studies that bedbugs might transmit blood-borne diseases like the plague, yellow fever, hepatitis or HIV. In the past, hepatitis was found in bedbugs in Africa. But in previous animal experiments, bedbugs fed tainted blood did not infect chimpanzees.

"At this time there's no evidence they're transmitting human diseases. That should allay fears," Goddard said.

Before their re-emergence in the past decade, bedbugs largely disappeared from developed countries for 50 years, coinciding with wide use of the pesticide DDT.

But getting rid of infestations now is difficult, Goddard said. The bugs can live up to a year without feeding and have developed resistance to some insecticides. "It's not related to sanitation. It's related to people going around," he said, noting bedbugs usually hitch rides in travellers' luggage.

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