Do Bedbugs Spread MRSA?
Do Bedbugs Spread MRSA?
Drug-Resistant Bacteria Cultured From Bedbugs
Romney and colleague Christopher Lowe of the University of Toronto suggest that bedbugs might deposit drug-resistant bacteria on the skin when they bite. If a person scratched the bite until it bled, the bacteria on the skin might cause an infection.
Indeed, skin infections with drug-resistant bacteria are common among patients from the Downtown Eastside community. So are bedbugs. But so is injection drug use, an extremely efficient means of getting bacteria under the skin.
Romney says his findings mean more research is needed.
"We'd like to actually go into the shelters, collect some of the bedbugs in concert with a bug expert, and see in a community setting if there is evidence of drug-resistant bacteria carriage in bedbugs collected in the community," he says. "We're also interested in exactly where the bedbugs carry the bacteria. There is a suggestion they can carry it in their salivary glands, but is this the case? We don't know."
Romney and Lowe report their findings in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, published by the CDC.
Do Bedbugs Spread MRSA?
Drug-Resistant Bacteria Cultured From Bedbugs
Superbugs From Bedbugs continued...
Romney and colleague Christopher Lowe of the University of Toronto suggest that bedbugs might deposit drug-resistant bacteria on the skin when they bite. If a person scratched the bite until it bled, the bacteria on the skin might cause an infection.
Indeed, skin infections with drug-resistant bacteria are common among patients from the Downtown Eastside community. So are bedbugs. But so is injection drug use, an extremely efficient means of getting bacteria under the skin.
Romney says his findings mean more research is needed.
"We'd like to actually go into the shelters, collect some of the bedbugs in concert with a bug expert, and see in a community setting if there is evidence of drug-resistant bacteria carriage in bedbugs collected in the community," he says. "We're also interested in exactly where the bedbugs carry the bacteria. There is a suggestion they can carry it in their salivary glands, but is this the case? We don't know."
Romney and Lowe report their findings in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, published by the CDC.
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