Bed Bug Transmit Disease

Bed Bug Bites Transmit Disease

Do bed bugs carry disease? Well, bed bugs carry 24 known pathogens, according to Baumann. Do bed bugs transmit disease? Nope, bed bug bites won't make you sick unless, of course, the bites get infected. Baumann says that the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted research in Africa which produced no documentation that the little ankle biters can transmit disease.

Mosquitos, on the other hand, can carry plenty of creepy crud like malaria and West Nile disease, which they transmit to you via science fiction-like needle nose. (Yeah, ewww. We didn't ask for the proboscis probe.) bed bugs do feed on blood, but they don't spread AIDS or other blood-borne illnesses. (In fact, no bugs spread AIDS, according to Baumann. That's not to say bed bugs and bed bug bites aren't a disgusting drag.

Bed bugs seem to possess all of the necessary prerequisites for being capable of passing diseases from one host to another, but there have been no known cases of bed bugs passing disease from host to host. There are at least twenty-seven known pathogens (some estimates are as high as forty-one) that are capable of living inside a bed bug or on its mouthparts. Extensive testing in laboratory settings concludes that bed bugs are unlikely to pass disease from one person to another. Therefore bed bugs are less dangerous than some more common insects such as the flea. Bed bugs cannot give you a disease like AIDS. This is one of the first things many people become worried about when they get bitten, which makes sense given how many things you hear you can get from other insects like mosquitoes. Bed bugs, however, won't transmit anything to you. They often have diseases inside them, but for whatever reason people don't catch them from a bed bug.

Since bedbugs are parasites that feed on human blood as well as feeding on blood of other mammals, asking ourselves whether bedbugs transmit diseases is only natural. After all, mosquitoes live off human blood and depending on the strain of mosquito; they transmit diseases such as malaria, encephalitis, and dengue fever. Fleas live off human blood as well as blood from other animals and they transmit bubonic plague. What's more, bedbugs do carry human viral and bacterial agents that can theoretically cause diseases. Bedbugs also carry protozoa and parasitic worms. In furtherance, bedbugs leave fecal droppings (spots) in areas they occupy. This includes mattresses, sheets, blankets, and could even include people's pajamas or body partsbed bugscrawl on.