Bed bugs linked to MRSA superbug

If the thought of sharing a bed with blood-sucking insects is hair-raising, then you may want to stop reading now, as bedbugs may harbour the highly dangerous MRSA bacterium, according to a new study.

Canadian scientists have isolated methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) from a hospital patient who lived in an impoverished area of Vancouver, where a rise in bedbugs and MRSA had been reported in recent years.

It is generally thought that bedbugs don't transmit disease between people, although it is theoretically possible, as they feed on human blood.

However, their bite can be extremely itchy, causing the victim to scratch. This may in turn cause a break in the skin, allowing bacteria such as the antibiotic resistant MRSA to establish an infection.

The scientist in the study crushed five bed bugs from three patients at St. Paul's Hospital, Vancouver, and analysed the contents.

MRSA was found in three of the samples. Two other samples contained another antibiotic resistant bacterium called vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE). Both are known to cause hospital acquired infections.

Dr Marc Romney, a microbiologist at St Paul's, said the findings did not show that bedbugs are capable of transmitting disease. The outside of the insect may have become contaminated with MRSA from a person's skin, rather than the bacterium living and multiplying within the bedbug's gut.

However, both ways can spread disease, and people living in overcrowded and unhygienic conditions would be most at risk.

The study was released online in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a publication of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This article was published on Fri 13 May 2011