by jjneal
This week (February 12, 2012) TV and Newspapers have splashed headlines about bed bugs found in Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana. It is not surprising that a hospital would have bed bug issues. After all, a hospital is a combination hotel (place for families to stay and sleep) and medical office. All places where people stay, homes, apartments, college dorms, hotels and even cruise ships have bed bug problems. Bed bugs infest public buildings, libraries and places such as stretch limos that many would never suspect would harbor bed bugs.
Hospitals worry about infectious diseases and some insects are capable of transmitting disease. Bed bugs fortunately, are not very good transmitters of disease. Bed bugs will take a large blood meal and return to a harborage to digest it. Extended periods between blood meals means that pathogens that do not reproduce in the host are unlikely to be transmitted between patients. Bed bug behavior differs from more effective vectors that bite multiple people (or animals) in a short period of time.
Do bed bugs signify a “bad” hospital? Not at all. Bed bugs are moved about in luggage and personal items. One person with infested items can infest a building. Bed bugs can even be moved in library books. Bed bugs are not associated with lack of cleanliness. Even sterile rooms can support bed bugs if there are people to bite. More important is how serious the hospital addresses the problem and how well they communicate to the public. Any place someone stays overnight can be a place to be subject to bed bug feeding and a place to inadvertently pick up a bed bug infestation and carry it home. From 5 star hotels to hospitals, the current bed bug “epidemic” requires vigilance.
Underside of Immature Bed Bug
Its interesting to think an insect can function on human blood. What line of evolution would it have to follow to be dependent on us. Its very interesting particularly because as it stated in the blog that these bugs can live in most environments so long as it has a supply of blood to feed on.
Cimex lectularius is already following the “lineage path”. Like body and head lice (Pediculus humanus), they are blood parasites primarily of humans only. Bedbugs are not as far along the path since they are not yet obligate human feeders, as I understand it.
Hosts are not defenseless against parasites, a factor that limits host range. There is very strong selection for adaptation to changes in the defenses of a primary host. There is less strong selection for adaptation to changes in the defenses of an occasional or infrequent host. Host defense against a frequent parasite may confer resistance to an infrequent parasite. This is a major part of the dynamic.
The environment and behavior are other keys. Adaptations to habitat selection and behaviors may give parasites a large advantage on a primary host but disadvantage them on an infrequent host. This can lead to directional selection in which populations on host A are selected for genetic trait A and populations on host B are selected for genetic trait B. Parts of the population not specialized will lose the competition to A selected strains on host A and to B selected strains on host B and will decline in frequency. This also leads to speciation with Host A species and Host B species.
this is interesting topic but medical authorities adopt such measure to remove bed bugs from hospitals. great post keep updating us..
bed bugs are everywhere, pests that are so hard to eliminate. This article is Great! Thanks. gonna bookmarked this
Jjneal:
Could you evaluate a new bed bug control method? For all of the known methods, people seek bed bugs and kill them. This is a difficulty job. A new method kills bed bugs in an opposite way. Bed bugs seek people, they are killed when they find people. This is an easy job for every bed bug. I have confirmed this method because I got rid of bed bugs in 3 weeks without receiving a single bed bug bites from the first day of effort. You are an expert, I hope you can find any failure possibility when other people use this method, so that people may further improve this method.
There is no evidence that the method you link would be effective. I recommend that anyone with bed bugs contact a professional with a record of good results in bed bug elimination. People are so desperate to get rid of bed bugs they often will try many things and spend a lot of money on ideas that do not work.
This is very interesting to see that bed bugs can be just about anywhere. I always thought that places that had bed bugs were areas that did not have very high cleanliness standards. It’s a small comfort to know that they don’t spread disease very well, but the fact that they can travel around so easily is a bit unnerving. This was very interesting article to read about.