{"id":4502,"date":"2024-02-28T19:39:12","date_gmt":"2024-02-28T19:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/?p=4502"},"modified":"2024-02-28T19:39:14","modified_gmt":"2024-02-28T19:39:14","slug":"bed-bugs-on-rampage-where-do-these-critters-hovering-around-come-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/28\/bed-bugs-on-rampage-where-do-these-critters-hovering-around-come-from\/","title":{"rendered":"Bed bugs on rampage, where do these critters hovering around come from?"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the sedating acts I witnessed while growing up was how people who were infested with lice in their hair slept off anytime the lice were hunted and crashed.<\/p>\n

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The picture shows the practice of searching for lice in the hair of people with infestations. <\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The next thing I can remember about lice infestation was during medical entomology, when we were taken through the hazards associated with pubic lice infestation. For a long time, I have not seen a person with a lice infestation except in pictures in books. One will not be wrong to think that we have been able to eradicate lice as a country and that it is no longer a public health menace. But the experience of the resurgence of bed bugs in some homes in urban cities makes me think otherwise.<\/p>\n

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For people who know about the spread of infectious diseases and their agents, the unwelcome return of the bed bug will not take them by surprise as many are. These sneaky blood-sucking parasites were nearly eradicated in the mid-20th century in many developed countries, but have now made an alarming comeback in most senior high schools in Ghana. One will not be far from wrong to name them the “pest of the 21st century” for their stealthy resilience and rapid spread. I remember that during the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the control of bed-bugs influenced the selection of anti-microbial agents that were used to disinfect the places that were earmarked.<\/p>\n

One wonders of the factors that have enabled the resurgence of the beast. Could it be increased international travel, resistance to insecticides, poor hygiene, a lack of public awareness and health programs, and an ability to adapt to human environments? These and many more desire public health attention to curb their potential to amplify deadly infectious diseases.<\/p>\n

As said by the people of old, a person who has been bitten by a snake will take to his heels at the sight of a worm. I saw bed-bugs in one of the hotels during a monitoring visit. I took the critter in a tissue as evidence with the hope of suing the facility and its management. Upon second thought, seeing the critters around was no news and did not warrant the effort to seek legal reddress for such negligence. My position was confirmed when in a recent to one of the western countries, similar critters were seen hovering around in the hotel room.<\/p>\n

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Bed bugs typically bite exposed skin at night when hosts are sleeping, injecting a numbing, anti-clotting saliva to draw blood for their meals. The bites often appear as red, itchy welts in zig-zag lines. While not inherently dangerous, they can lead to significant discomfort, anxiety, sleeplessness, and secondary bacterial infections from excessive scratching. Occasionally, anaphylaxis may occur in those with severe allergies.<\/p>\n

But beyond being just a nuisance pest, bed bugs may transmit infectious pathogens between hosts during feeding. The bugs can acquire viruses, bacteria, parasites, and other agents from one host, and then introduce them into the bite wound of the next victim. This makes them effective vectors.<\/p>\n

Research has detected a number of disease-causing organisms in bed bugs, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), hepatitis B virus, hepatitis C virus, HIV, Trypanosoma cruzi parasite (which causes Chagas disease), and Wolbachia bacteria. There are also concerns they may be able to transmit vector-borne diseases like malaria, dengue, chikungunya, yellow fever, and Ebola through their bites, even though that is not substantiated.<\/p>\n

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The prevalence of these pathogens in bed bug populations varies regionally but seems to be increasing overall, and Ghana needs to pay attention, especially among the population that uses senior high school facilities. Their role as potential vectors for infectious disease should gain more recognition and study.<\/p>\n

Certain living conditions appear to amplify the risk of disease transmission from bed bugs. Crowded shelters, refugee camps, prisons, homeless encampments, and low-income housing provide prime conditions for parasites to proliferate and then spread infections rapidly. This has been evidenced by Chagas outbreaks in poor rural communities in Latin America. The question remains: where did the uninvited critters hovering around in senior high schools in Ghana come from? Now it is common practice that when students are going home during vacation, they dare not enter their homes with their belongings until they have been disinfected.<\/p>\n

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While more research is urgently needed, the evidence is clear that bed bugs may act as ‘bridge vectors’ for many dangerous infectious diseases not typically considered to be vector-borne illnesses. The bugs likely amplify transmission that could otherwise not occur, or result in “silent” spread undetected by standard surveillance focused on known vector species.<\/p>\n

Yet little public health infrastructure exists to monitor and control bed bugs compared to that targeting mosquitoes, ticks, or other pests. Their inconspicuous nature provides them with relative stealth. But their role in propagating viruses, bacteria, and parasites should not be underestimated or ignored, given the heavy toll of global infectious diseases. Concerted, collaborative action against bed bugs is needed now, especially in Ghana, before they become further entrenched.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the sedating acts I witnessed while growing up was how people who were infested with lice in their hair slept off anytime the lice were hunted and crashed. The next thing I can remember about lice infestation was during medical entomology, when we were taken through the hazards associated with pubic lice infestation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,5],"tags":[1007,1005,1006],"class_list":["post-4502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-health-and-diseases","category-opinions","tag-bed-bugs","tag-lice","tag-pests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4567,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502\/revisions\/4567"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adugyasidennis.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}