Why are bedbugs dangerous to humans and can they be carriers of diseases?

Discussions about whether bed

(Cimex lectularius) and
tropical
(Cimex hemipterus) bugs transmit any diseases to people through bites are constantly being carried out, however, there are no unequivocal, fully proven and scientifically recognized conclusions on this score. The situation is such for several reasons at once.

• During laboratory studies, more than 40 viral, bacterial, fungal and parasitic infections are found in the bodies, saliva and excrement of bedbugs, however, the mechanism and the likelihood of their transmission to humans have not yet been fully clarified.
• To date, in world practice, there are not enough deep and voluminous studies on this score, and those that have already been carried out give ambiguous results that require even more in-depth study.
• Insects are constantly evolving, adapting to the changing environment, climate and substances with which they are trying to poison, which affects their physiology and, among other things, changes their ability to spread disease.

This information is critically necessary for understanding the problem as a whole and correctly understanding information about the ability of bedbugs to transmit any diseases.

Viral diseases that are transmitted through arthropod bites are called arboviruses. Are HIV and AIDS among them and do bedbugs carry hepatitis?

note

There are more than 500 species of arboviruses, but they have all been discovered by examining the bodies or secretions of insects or animal vectors. To date, there is no evidence or evidence that bed bug bites have led to an outbreak or epidemic of any arbovirus disease in humans.

What is the main danger?

It is believed that the main danger in insect bites is the itching that accompanies them. The symptom manifests itself in response to a substance that the insect injects into the blood of the victim to reduce blood clotting - so the parasite is much more convenient to feed on blood.

At the site of the bite, a red spot forms with a noticeable dot in the center, which causes itching.

What else can bed bugs be dangerous?

If we talk about the subsequent harm of bedbugs, then it can be argued that it manifests itself in the form of:

• inflammation at the bite sites;
• allergic manifestations;
• disorders of the nervous system;
• a decrease in the level of hemoglobin in the blood (usually observed in children and women during pregnancy);
• rapid fatigue, weakness.

However, the greatest danger is fraught with another fact: bedbugs often carry diseases, they are more susceptible to people with weakened or fragile immunity (pregnant women, children who have undergone secondary facial pathology).

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Species diversity, habitat

There are many types of bedbugs in nature. Not all representatives of this order feed on the blood of animals, many parasitize on plants. But all insects from this family have a unifying property - they are parasites that feed on liquid food, such as plant sap or the blood of other creatures. For humans, bed bugs are especially dangerous, since these are the most frequent inhabitants of city apartments, hotels, sanatoriums and pioneer camps.

Turtle, arboreal, carnivore, forest bug, forest, bed bugs

Important!

Bed bugs are carriers of diseases. They carry diseases of the blood and respiratory system, cause allergies and cause great anxiety to young children.

House bugs lead a sedentary lifestyle, they do not have wings and are not able to fly to other areas for settlement. This sedentary lifestyle contributes to the fact that the parasites are very densely settled within the same house, rapidly multiplying and parasitizing on its inhabitants.

The inability to run quickly in the representatives of this family is compensated by their small size, inconspicuous lifestyle and flat bodies, which are almost impossible to flatten. Bed bugs penetrate beds, sofas, armchairs and patiently wait for their prey to silently attack and bite. Parasites have a highly developed sense of smell and touch, so they find a person in absolute darkness by smell and by radiated heat.

Most often, bedbugs attack a person at night and bite when he is in a dream. It is during this period that the victim is most often motionless and unable to resist. As a bug bites, it causes affection among entomologists. Before making a bite, the parasite chooses a suitable place on the skin and makes a puncture. The mouth apparatus of all bugs is piercing-sucking, so they are not adapted to feed in a different way.

What diseases do they suffer?

What disease carriers are we talking about? It is impossible to unequivocally answer this question, since experts have different opinions on this matter.

Bedbugs are carriers of infection - they are able to transmit the pathogen through a bite such diseases as:

• tuberculosis;
• Hepatitis B;
• typhoid fever;
• anthrax, etc.

The provocateur of the disease enters the human body through a bite along with blood. However, there is no scientifically confirmed fact of transmission of infection from a sick individual to a bitten person through bed bugs. Accordingly, there is no reliable answer to the question of what kind of diseases the bugs carry.

According to experts, in addition to bites, contact with the parasite is also a danger to humans. The hepatitis B virus remains in the excrement of an individual. The pathogen, once in the body, is able to develop - the infected person will become ill.

Can bedbugs transmit HIV in the same way? With a high degree of probability, it can be argued that AIDS is not transmitted in this way.

Ways to fight

In most cases, folk remedies or chemical insecticides are used to remove insects. You can get rid of bedbugs if you find all their habitats.

The most popular folk methods that work with a small accumulation of parasites:

1. Denatured alcohol has an extremely unpleasant smell for bedbugs, therefore, it repels pests. When it is applied to the places of their accumulation, insects die.
2. Turpentine is not a strong remedy, so it is advisable to use it in combination with other methods.
3. Dust is most often used in conjunction with turpentine or vinegar. The latter is not able to remove pests, but it repels them well.
4. Tansy, wormwood, birch leaves cannot destroy parasites, but they restrain their spread.

Denatured alcohol to combat bedbugs.

Among the most effective insecticides are the following drugs:

1. "Executioner" is considered safe for humans, which helps to effectively fight parasites in the house. The liquid is dissolved in water, then sprayed with a spray bottle. One bottle is enough for 1-2 pieces of furniture, so it is better to immediately stock up on the right amount. During processing, all residents are evacuated, the windows are closed.
2. "Karbofos" is an old remedy, proven over the years. He is a sales leader, but it is possible that he will not help get rid of all the bugs in the room. Insects develop addiction to it.Karbofos paralyzes the nervous system. When spraying, put on a protective suit, work with gloves.
3. "Combat" is a powerful drug, notable for the fact that it is already sold with a dispenser. Manufactured in Russia. Many people point to the high efficiency of "Combat", however, several bottles will also be required to process the apartment. They purchase the product on the basis that 1 cylinder is enough for 5 m².

Bedbugs are slow, but very secretive. Females are very fertile and capable of rapidly expanding their populations. The fact that the parasites are settled and try not to move away from the feeding place is successfully used by humans to destroy bedbugs.

In ancient times, beds and sofas were steamed. The linen was carefully ironed and washed in very hot water. This was done to destroy egg clutches, since embryos and larvae are very sensitive to overheating and die at a temperature of 50 degrees C.

Modern means of combating parasites are insecticides from the group of peritroids:

• Executioner - destroys insects and their larvae, effective against eggs;
• Get - a representative of microencapsulated funds, destroys all blood-sucking parasites and their larvae; Get remedy for bedbugs
• Karbofos - a drug that has proven its effectiveness for decades, is used to combat bedbugs at all stages of their development;
• Raptor is a modern effective product against parasitic insects. Odorless. Fast-acting substances in the composition of the product instantly block the activity of adult insects and young larvae, not allowing a single bite to be made.

There are other ways how and how to treat an apartment from bedbugs, but the greatest efficiency can be achieved with comprehensive measures and preventive measures.

It is unlikely to become infected with a dangerous disease from bedbugs, bedbugs do not tolerate AIDS or the plague, since they are inactive and try not to leave the apartment. But bedbug bites cause severe allergies and itching, which interfere with normal life and rest of a person, and sometimes bring him to severe irritability.

Why are bed bugs dangerous for allergy sufferers?

Regardless of what an ordinary bed bug is tolerating, the primary danger of an insect bite is the reaction of the body. This process is especially acute in allergy sufferers.

There are two types of reactions of an allergic person's body to a parasite bite:

1. Local. This is the most harmless variant of the course of the clinical picture. Red spots appear on the body, they can itch, swell. The patient is uncomfortable, irritated. In especially severe cases, legs damaged by insect bites swell.
2. General. What is really dangerous about a bed bug is the general reaction of the body. In addition to itching and spots on the body, the patient begins to be bothered by severe pain in the lesions, redness and swelling of the skin spreads throughout the body. Often, the patient's facial area swells. Swelling of the nasopharynx and larynx can develop into choking. In the absence of medical care, the patient develops anaphylactic shock. In addition, there is a cough, nasal discharge, headache.

Attention! A person who is allergic to bed bugs will, over time, notice characteristic symptoms, which can be expressed to varying degrees.

Moreover, the allergy is caused not by the bite itself, but by the enzymes contained in the substance injected by the parasite. At the initial stage, the components act on the principle of an anesthetic, then cause an allergic reaction.

Parasites can be harmful to the body of an allergic person, even in the absence of contact with him. Insects emit specific vapors into the air; an organism affected by allergies can react to them.

How to find out if there are bugs in the house or not

Despite the seeming simplicity of the question, there is still a sense to ask it, and a serious one.The fact is that bedbugs increase their colony gradually and not so quickly by the standards of the insect world. It may take three to four months before open signs of bedbug infestation appear. But the faster you start working on their destruction, the higher the final effect will be. Among other things, in the presence of strong immunity in humans, bug bites with all the characteristic external differences may not manifest themselves in any way, at least in the first 14 days after they began to appear.

One of the easiest ways to determine if bed bugs are present is to have signal bites on the face, neck, arms, hands, or any other part of the body during sleep. Since there may be no bright signs, and the number of bites due to the small number of insects is not large, you should pay attention to small red specks that may itch.

In addition, there are several signs of bed bugs, which include:

• chitinous shells of parasites, which shed all young individuals during molting;
• live bugs in the folds of mattresses and sheets;
• rusty-colored blood stains, of different sizes, usually near the sleeping place.
• sweet musty smell in the room.

Psycho-emotional problems

Mental disorders that provoke serious malfunctions in the body are one of the most unpleasant consequences of insect bites.

The patient, having found another bug on his body, begins to get nervous, he has a surge of negative emotions, fear and other unpleasant psycho-emotional manifestations appear.

The clinical picture is further exacerbated by an attack by bedbugs at night - the patient cannot get enough sleep, is distracted by itching - lack of sleep leads to emotional breakdowns.

Constant contact with insects is expressed in the following unpleasant manifestations:

• nervous tic, which manifests itself not only with direct contact with the parasite, but also after the discovery of bite marks;
• sleep disturbance;
• aggressiveness, excitability of the patient;
• loss of concentration;
• increased fatigue.

Danger to children and pregnant women

What is dangerous for a bug for an adult is clear. Separately, it is worth touching on the topic of the danger of an insect bite for a child's body. We are talking about the most defenseless family members, whose immunity has not yet matured for a full-fledged fight against parasites.

Often, bugs living in an apartment or house bite only children, since children's skin is thin and soft - this makes it easier to get to the main source of food - the vessel.

House bugs potentially feel the "weak link" in the circle of households - they easily bite through the skin of the child and feed on his blood, while the victim rarely feels pain and discomfort at the time of the bite.

After some time, the insect's "anesthetic" changes its composition and begins to stimulate the response of the child's body - local allergic reactions appear, they are much more difficult to tolerate by a child than by an adult.

The patient intensively scratches the affected areas, into which the infection can be carried along with dirty hands. Allergies in children are often protracted and spread throughout the body.

The most difficult test for the patient will be iron deficiency anemia.

Another category of persons for whom encounter with parasites is especially difficult are pregnant women. The immune system of the expectant mother is weakened, the response that manifests itself is severe and does not pass for a long time.

The patient suffers from chronic lack of sleep, becomes irritable against the background of itching. In addition, a woman has a risk of contracting a disease, which is carried by a bug.

And protection against bed bugs in the case of expectant mothers is not so reliable: in such circumstances, not every aerosol from bed bugs is suitable (you must read the instructions).

How to find them

To find bedbugs in a home, you need to carefully check the places where they hide: first, carefully examine the furniture, then pay attention to the seams of mattresses, bed linen. Parasites can lodge in the joints between the backrest and seat of an armchair or sofa. Insects often hide from the back of furniture or even crawl under the bottom. They can settle in pillows with removable covers.

Places where bedbugs accumulate.

When there are a lot of bugs, pests can be detected by the results of vital activity. If you don't look closely, their excrement looks like mold. Over time, the parasites begin to lay larvae, which are white and elongated.

We suggest you familiarize yourself with: How to get rid of bedbugs at home

Weekly adults molt, shedding a light gray, almost transparent chitinous cover. If there are a lot of bugs, then you can notice them during the day. Insects are small in size, up to 4 mm, brown in color, 6 limbs and a mustache.

The presence of bedbugs in the apartment is indicated by a sweetish smell. Despite such a specific sign, the inhabitants of the house often get used to the strange scent. It can be clearly seen when entering the premises from the street.