The CDC (the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) asserts that:
Bed bugs should not be considered as a medical or public health hazard. Bed bugs are not known to spread disease.
Can the risk of disease transmission be categorically ruled out, considering that, after all, bed bugs feed on people's and animals' blood?
Can the risk of disease transmission be categorically ruled out, considering that, after all, bedbugs feed on people's and animals' blood?
No. More research is needed before such a statement could be made.
As it stands now, despite investigations of transmissibility of numerous infectious agents, including transmissible blood-borne pathogens such as HIV and hepatitis B and C viruses, to our knowledge, no conclusive evidence has demonstrated disease transmission by bedbugs [1][2]
However, there are some reasons for concern regarding the possibility of bedbugs being a vector for drug-resistant bacteria, or commensal bacteria that are themselves vectors.
Three residents of an impoverished community in Vancouver were hospitalized, and found to be infested with bedbugs. The bedbugs were tested for the presence of drug-resistant bacteria, and bedbugs from each of the three patients were found to be carriers:
For 2 patients, VRE was isolated from 1 bedbug each. These bacterial isolates were also resistant to ampicillin, teicoplanin, and aminoglycosides but susceptible to linezolid, quinupristin/dalfopristin, and tetracycline. For 1 other patient, MRSA was isolated from 3 bedbugs.
The conclusions drawn from the incident are:
Bedbugs carrying MRSA and/or VRE may have the potential to act as vectors for transmission. Further studies are needed to characterize the association between S. aureus and bedbugs. Bedbug carriage of MRSA, and the portal of entry provided through feeding, suggests a plausible potential mechanism for passive transmission of bacteria during a blood meal. Because of the insect’s ability to compromise the skin integrity of its host, and the propensity for S. aureus to invade damaged skin, bedbugs may serve to amplify MRSA infections in impoverished urban communities.
Additionally, a study of an outbreak of bedbugs on French warships in the Mediterranean found that 13 of the 18 insects collected carried bacteria of the genus Wolbachia, which is suspected as a pathogenic vector for hepatitis B and American trypanosomiasis (Chagas disease). Link to the PDF abstract.
