Bedbugs, regarded as the No. 1 pest in Victoria, have been associated in a small study with two antibioticresistant "superbug" bacteria, one of which is behind flesh-eating disease.
According to B.C. public health and the study's author, Dr. Marc Romney, the findings raise "intriguing" questions, worthy of more investigation. But nobody should panic, they said.
The study, conducted by medical microbiologists at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, examined five bedbugs taken from patients and found the drug-resistant bacteria, MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) a bacteria that, in its most virulent manifestations, can cause necrotizing fasciitis, flesh-eating disease. Also cultured was another antibiotic-resistant bacteria, VRE (vanomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium).
The St. Paul's study was published Wednesday in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a journal published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study "is intriguing but by no means conclusive," said Romney. "You are much more likely to get MRSA from poor personal hygiene, not washing your hands.
"But people like to think ... bedbugs can transmit these superbugs, but we're not there yet."
Bedbugs are reddish brown, flat, oval-shaped parasitic insects, about five millimetres long.
They are mostly active at night and feed by piercing the skin of a larger animal host, such as a human.
After becoming engorged on blood they return to their hiding place. Their bite can leave an itchy skin rash.
Ashley Browne, manager of Victoria Pest Control, said his company started taking calls about bedbugs about seven years ago.
The calls increased steadily until about three years ago, when they were receiving as many as 100 a week. The calls have gone down to about five to 10 calls a week, but bedbugs still generates more calls than any other pest.
"It's our No. 1 business, is bedbugs," he said.
There are fewer than 10 chemical pesticides, approved for use in Canada, to kill bedbugs, Browne said.
Many people do not want to use chemical pesticides, so the only alternative is a special heat treatment, in which entire rooms are brought up to bedbugkilling temperatures.
In Victoria, infestations seem to occur mostly in multiple-unit dwellings such as hotels and apartments. Subsidized housing and shelters also frequently report bedbug infestations.
Dr. Perry Kendall, B.C. provincial health officer, said the fact that bedbugs are found in places like shelters or poor housing made the association with MRSA almost "moot."
"You've got a bunch of people sleeping in the same room, it would be moot as to whether you are more likely to get [MRSA] from personal contact or whether you then gave it to the bedbugs," said Kendall.
MRSA can be found on people throughout the community and many do not develop any symptoms, Kendall said. It is not well understood why some people suddenly become infected with flesh-eating disease while others do not.
Kendall said the new bedbug study was interesting, but it was not known whether the resistant bacteria were living inside the bedbugs, in their guts or mouths, or on their outside of their bodies, picked up during contact.
The bugs were collected, homogenized -ground up -and bacteria cultures then prepared from their bodies.
It is impossible to say whether the bacteria can be transmitted via bedbugs or through the bite of the bedbugs, but it is worthy of further study, Kendall said. "The unanswered question is 'Do [bedbugs] have a role in transmitting MRSA in any significant way, or any way at all?' That we simply don't know," said Kendall.
"It's intriguing. It adds bedbugs to the things we already know can spread MRSA. I don't think people should panic. It doesn't mean to say the bedbugs will bite one person infected with MRSA and then bite you, and you'll get a staphyloccocal infection."
rwatts@timescolonist.com
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