Bed Bugs & Bird Flu

This is the first time I am posting on Bird Flu because it wasn't a topic that interested me. I haven't put much thought into it because since SARS - I was pretty sure our health units have learned to take the necessary steps to guard against pandemics here.

But I am always thinking and this time it's about bed bugs.

I thought the only time I would have to deal with bedbugs was reading about them in Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes.

No one wants to admit they have ever had an infestation of bed bugs and I thought I had escaped the infestation in my building last year. It turned out I woke up with one feasting on my wrist. In a panic I upturned my bed linen to find they were nestled in a feather duvet. Before I bagged all of my linen, pillows – everything - and threw them in the trash – I harvested as many of them as I could and put them in a jar. (Thoughts of using a magnifying glass or some other vehicle of bug torture was contemplated)

Now I knew these pests like to hitch rides but it didn’t make sense to me how they could get around so efficiently. There was no way in hell that I was going to be infested for a minute longer and I wanted the best damn bug spray I could get my hands on so I didn’t have to wait for the building’s management to hire an exterminator and get the problem taken care of a week later.

I took to the Internet and this is what I found out about these creatures according to the University of Kentucky’s Entomology Department:

“In recent years, bed bugs have also made a comeback in the U.S. They are increasingly being encountered in homes, apartments, hotels, motels, dormitories, shelters and modes of transport. International travel and immigration have undoubtedly contributed to the resurgence of bed bugs in this country. Changes in modern pest control practice - and less effective bed bug pesticides - are other factors suspected for the recurrence.”

I was very surprised to learn that bed bugs not only feed on humans but pets, bats and birds. The proverbial light bulb clicked on – that would explain why they liked my duvet so much – they were at home in the feathers.

The UoK’s Department of Entomology says that bed bugs “feed by piercing the skin with an elongated beak through which they draw blood”. (If you want to see these repulsive creatures feed the UoK has a video link)

Well, if a mosquito pierces the skin and feeds with its long proboscis and can transfer West Nile Virus – why can’t a bed bug transfer Bird Flu seeing they feed from birds as well?

And what if those bed bugs have fed off birds carrying bird flu?

Since my building is near the water it also has an infestation of pigeons. Bed bugs find their way through walls and can entered via loose baseboards and into adjoining apartments through holes surrounding plumbing in the walls. These should be enclosed according to the Ontario Building Code building standards guidelines and health unit requests.

Dealing with anyone remotely “professional” in Hamilton is like pulling teeth. The building management is aware that the plumbing should be enclosed and have been asked twice to consider doing the full building. They’ve ignored the requests. Even the City of Hamilton’s building department is frustrating. Attempts to get them to inspect the building ends up in a passing of the buck exercise back to the management of the building.

In one case the building department violated a tenant's privacy rights by passing their name to management against the tenants requests not to. (This wouldn’t be the first time for Hamilton’s building department – jeopardizing the safety and shelter of the tenant if the landlord happens to be particularly hostile)

In any case, I decided to call the City of Hamilton’s Health Unit and asked them if they wanted my bugs to analyze. They refused because they didn’t have the facilities to test them.

I thought it would be cool to have them do some analysis on them. They could have also requested to analyze the bugs from other tenants to see if they carried infectious blood or even non-infectious blood but of differing types.

Anyway, I still thought it was a good idea so I contacted the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta Georgia to see if they want my bugs.

It wasn’t until tonight that I found that according to the Toronto Health Unit bed bugs could theoretically act as a disease vector, which transmit the agent that causes trench fever. Hepatitis B can be detected in bed bugs up to 6 weeks after they feed on infectious blood but they found no transfer to animal test subjects. The T.H.U says that transmission of hepatitis C is unlikely since it has not been detectable in bed bugs after an infectious blood meal. Live HIV can be recovered from bed bugs up to 1 hours after they feed on infected blood but they have found no evidence of HIV transmission.

So having learned this, why wouldn’t my bugs be wanted for scientific experiments? There’s no love loss - I don't mind subjecting my bugs to dissection.

Science is just too cool sometimes to pass up being creative and ruling out all possibilities. It could not only help to solve one problem, but perhaps others.


Update February 28 '06: Bird Flu found in dead cat on island in Germany - the National Post