The MRSA bacterium was detected in bed bugs found in the beds of three patients in hospital with a deteriorating neighborhood of Vancouver. It was not known that bed bugs spread disease and there is clear evidence that the five bugs found in the patients or their belongings have spread the MRSA or other less-dangerous germ.
Anyway, bed bugs can cause itching that makes the affected are scratch excessively and in turn will fracture the skin, which becomes more susceptible to bacteria, said Dr. Marc Romney, one of the authors of the study.
The study is small and preliminary, "but is a curious finding" that requires more research, said Romney, a microbiologist at the Hospital St. Paul in Vancouver. The hospital is the nearest to the poor Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, near the coast. Romney said that he and his colleagues conducted the investigation after seeing a simultaneous increase of bugs and cases of MRSA in that neighborhood.
Five bed bugs were analyzed. The MRSA, or Staphylococcus aureus resistant to Methicillin, was found in three of them. The MRSA is resistant to several kinds of common antibiotics and can be fatal if it penetrates the skin until blood flow.
Two bugs were VRE Vancomycin Enterococcus faecium resident at vancimicina, a less dangerous form of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Both germs are usually seen in hospitals and experts have been concerned much more than that nurses and other auxiliary health spread the bacterium to insects. It is not clear if the bacteria originated in the bed bugs or if you are picked up her infected, added Romney.
The study was broadcast this week by publishing Emerging Infectious Diseases (emerging infectious diseases), of the United States diseases prevention and Control Center.
