Category Archives: Bed Bugs British Columbia

Keven Drews, The Canadian Press Published Monday, December 22, 2014 6:00PM EST Last Updated Monday, December 22, 2014 9:36PM EST

VANCOUVER -- Enduring 180,000 bites is the scientific price a British Columbia biologist had to pay so her team of researchers could suck a little life out of the worldwide bedbug epidemic.

A team of biologists, a chemist and students from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C., announced Monday that they have identified a set of chemicals that can lure bedbugs into traps and keep them there.

The findings are significant because the pests, which were once thought eradicated in industrial countries, have reappeared over the past two decades, infesting everything from low-income housing to pricey hotels and causing health concerns, too.

Biologist Regine Gries, who with her husband Prof. Gerhard Gries, form part of the team, said she was initially a little reluctant and disgusted to act as a host so the pests could feed and scientists could gather and analyze the bugs skin and feces.

She said she got over those feelings because she, unlike others, was resistant to the bites.

"I calmed myself down thinking when human beings were still living in caves, they were probably bitten by bedbugs, by fleas, by mice and who knows what, all these insects associated with humans," she said. "So I think humans can endure this, and I'm lucky enough that I have no side effects, that I just can handle it."

Not only can bedbug bites cause rashes and itching, but a recent study linked them to Chagas, a disease that can cause serious heart and digestive problems in those who are infected, said SFU Chemistry Prof. Robert Britton, who is also a team member.

The team is now working with a company based out of Victoria, B.C., to develop the first effective and affordable trap to detect and monitor infestations.

The discoveries were made in three separate phases and began when the Gries and their students began the research about eight years ago.

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Scientist endures 180,000 bed bug bites to help develop trap

Regional News of Saturday, 13 December 2014

Source: GNA

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) is threateing to disconnect power from the Ashanti School for the Deaf for owing the company accumulated electricity bill of GH?80, 127.96.

The school authorities told Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview that the school is financially handicapped to settle such a whopping amount.

Mr Ofosu Boachie, Headmaster of the school who expressed worry over the disconnection threat said when it is carried out the pupils would not be able to communicate or study at night.

The schools only source of income is government feeding grants of GH?2.20p per pupil per day, which has, in recent times, been raised to GH?3.30 but has not been effected.

It is the feeding grant we rely on. It does not come regularly, that is what we manage to do maintenance, buy fuel and fire wood etc. We cant even pay our creditorsthey are always on us and we have to lie to them all the time, Mr Boachie said.

He said though the school has a standby generator donated to it by Sokpo, a non-governmental organisation from the Netherlands, the authorities could not afford to pay the GH?75.00 worth of fuel required to run it.

The cooks use fire wood, though the school has Liquefied Petroleum Gas tank which has been empty for nearly a year due to lack of funds.

The 595 disability students are living in bed-bugs-infested dormitories for two years and the authorities say they are financially weak to fight the pest-ridden creatures, because the charge for the fumigation process is GH?1,200.00.

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ADD Bed Bug Infestation - ECG threatens to disconnect ...

**TO NOTE TO READERS - THERE WERE NO BEDBUGS DISCOVERED IN THIS GUEST ROOM**

While we really appreciate this guest letting us know of her experience immediately allowing us the opportunity to investigate the possibility of bed bugs, we regret that "Brittany P" would not accept and believe our investigation findings as true, and only attempt to post a harmful review in response.

We take the warning of the possibility of bed bugs extremely seriously, as they can quickly become an incredible problem due to their unique life spans, and ability to quickly reproduce. On first notification, any room is immediately pulled from service to allow for a complete dismantling and inspection of the room space. This particular room type, as one of our finest, with mountain views is rarely seen unoccupied.

Unfortunately, this guest remained unwilling to believe and accept our findings as true.

While I regret that "Brittany P" feels "sloughed off", and that our lengthy investigation, and detailed communications response was considered "uncaring", our findings were contrary to her accusation, as was explained via numerous emails. Her threat, to post an online review has now become an unfortunate reality - despite the fact that her allegations have been proven false.

Colin Hedderson General Manager

This response is the subjective opinion of the management representative and not of TripAdvisor LLC.

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Bed Bugs!!! - Review of Aava Whistler Hotel, Whistler ...

The bed bug may be just as dangerous as its sinister cousin, the triatomine, or kissing bug. A new study from Penn Medicine researchers in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics demonstrated that bed bugs, like the triatomines, can transmit Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease, one of the most prevalent and deadly diseases in the Americas.

The role of the bloodsucking triatomine bugs as vectors of Chagas diseasewhich affects 6 to 8 million worldwide, mostly in Latin America, and kills about 50,000 a yearhas long been recognized. The insects infect people not through their bite but feces, which they deposit on their sleeping host, often around the face, after feeding. Bed bugs, on the other hand, are usually considered disease-free nuisances whose victims are left with only itchy welts from bites and sleepless nights.

In a study published online this week in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, senior author Michael Z. Levy, PhD, assistant professor in the department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvanias Perelman School of Medicine, and researchers at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru conducted a series of laboratory experiments that demonstrated bi-directional transmission of T. cruzi between mice and bed bugs.

In the first experiment run at the Zoonotic Disease Research Center in Arequipa, Peru, the researchers exposed 10 mice infected with the parasite to 20 uninfected bed bugs every three days for a month. Of about 2,000 bed bugs used in the experiment, the majority acquired T. cruzi after feeding on the mice. In a separate experiment to test transmission from bug to mouse, they found that 9 out of 12 (75 percent) uninfected mice acquired the parasite after each one lived for 30 days with 20 infected bed bugs.

In a third experiment, investigators succeeded in infecting mice by placing feces of infected bed bugs on the animals skin that had either been inflamed by bed bug bites, or scraped with a needle. Four out of 10 mice (40 percent) acquired the parasite by this manner; 1 out of 5 (20 percent) were infected when the skin was broken by the insects bites only. A final experiment performed at the Penn bed bug lab in Philadelphia demonstrated that bed bugs, like triatomines, defecate when they feed.

Weve shown that the bed bug can acquire and transmit the parasite. Our next step is to determine whether they are, or will become, an important player in the epidemiology of Chagas disease, Levy said. There are some reasons to worrybed bugs have more frequent contact with people than kissing bugs, and there are more of them in infested houses, giving them ample opportunity to transmit the parasite. But perhaps there is something important we dont yet understand about them that mitigates the threat.

T. cruzi is also especially at home in the guts of bed bugs. Ive never seen so many parasites in an insect, said Renzo Salazar, a biologist at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia and co-author on the study. I expected a scenario with very low infection, but we found many parasitesthey really replicate well in the gut of the bed bugs.

Wicked Cousins

Bed bugs and kissing bugs are distant cousins but share many striking similarities. Both insects hide in household cracks and crevices waiting for nightfall and the opportunity to feed on sleeping hosts. They are from the same order of insects (Hemiptera) and both only feed on blood. (One main difference is their size: kissing bugs are five times as big as a bed bug). With so much in common, it seemed logical to the authors that the kissing bugs most infamous trait, the transmission of T. cruzi, is also shared by the bed bug.

Other investigators have shared this suspicion. In 1912, just three years after Carlos Chagas described the transmission of the disease by kissing bugs, French parasitologist mile Brumpt recounted that he had infected almost 100 bed bugs exposed to an infectious mouse, and then used them to infect two healthy mice. Decades later an Argentine group replicated his work. These experiments, largely ignored during the recent bed bug resurgence, missed one key point.

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Research | Penn study shows bed bugs can transmit parasite ...

1 hour ago Credit: hoto by Alexander Wild. alexanderwild.com

Concerns over human-insecticide exposure has stimulated the development of alternative bed bug control materials, and many essential oil-based pesticides and detergent insecticides have been developed in recent years. But how well do they work? To find out, researchers from Rutgers University evaluated the efficacy of nine essential oil-based products and two detergents that are labeled and marketed for bed bug control. The results are published in an article in the Journal of Economic Entomology.

The non-synthetic bed bug pesticideswhich contain ingredients such as geraniol, rosemary oil, mint oil, cinnamon oil, peppermint oil, eugenol, clove oil, lemongrass oil, sodium lauryl sulfate, 2-Phenethyl propionate, potassium sorbate, and sodium chlorideincluded the following products:

When the researchers sprayed the 11 non-synthetic pesticides directly on bed bug nymphs, they found that only twoEcoRaider (1% geraniol, 1% cedar extract, and 2% sodium lauryl sulfate) and Bed Bug Patrol (0.003% clove oil, 1% peppermint oil, and 1.3% sodium lauryl sulfate)killed more than 90 percent of them. None of the non-synthetic insecticides had any noticeable effect against bed bug eggs except for EcoRaider, which killed 87 percent of them.

While these lab results may seem promising, the effectiveness of both products is probably much lower in actual settings because it is extremely difficult to spray any product directly on bed bugs because of their ability to hide in tiny cracks and crevices.

"Under field conditions, bed bugs hide in cracks, crevices, creases, and many other places where insecticide application may not be directly applied onto the hidden insects," the authors wrote. "Additional studies under field conditions are warranted to determine the field efficacy of EcoRaider and Bed Bug Patrol and how they can be incorporated into a bed bug management program."

Curiously, some of the active ingredients in EcoRaider and Bed Bug Patrol are also found in some of the other tested products that exhibited very low rates of efficacy, an indication that the products' inactive ingredients are also important.

"Other factors besides the active ingredients must have accounted for the high efficacy of some essential oil-based pesticides," the authors wrote. "Adjuvants such as wetting agents, spreaders, stabilizers, defoamers, stickers, and solvents may produce synergistic effects to essential oils by improving penetration through insect cuticle and translocation of the active ingredients within insect body."

Explore further: Bed bugs grow faster in groups

More information: The full article, "Potential of Essential Oil-Based Pesticides and Detergents for Bed Bug Control," is available at esa.publisher.ingentaconnect.c ints/content-EC14328

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Researchers compare efficacy of 'natural' bed bug pesticides