New England Bed Bug Forum

A rash thought be monkey pox that turned out to be bed bug bites has caused a two-hour quarantine of a Delta plane in Chicago Thursday may have been the work of bed bugs, not the monkey pox virus health officials feared.

The itchy passenger was Lise Sievers of Red Wing, Minn., a 50-year-old woman returning home from Uganda, where she was working to adopt two children. Sievers noticed the rash and told her mother, who got worried and called health officials in Indiana.

“It’s just a case of bed bugs,” Sievers told ABC News affiliate WLS after exiting the plane. “I think I’m going to empty a jar of bed bugs on my mom’s bed tonight.”

Other passengers aboard Flight 3163 feared the worst as officers wearing Hazmat suits studied the rash, sending photos to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta.

Imagine pass angers dismay of thinking they were exposed to monkey pox….when the person on the plane had bed bug bites.
Even though the passengers on the plane weren’t exposed to this deadly virus, they may still have been exposed to bed bugs on their persons and luggage.

“They didn’t tell us very much at all,” one passenger told WLS, describing a scene that could have come from the movie “Contagion.” “When they come on in masks and gloves, you think the worst.”

Monkey pox is a rare and sometimes fatal disease similar to smallpox that occurs mostly in central and western Africa. It’s contracted through contact with infected animals or their bodily fluids, and can spread among humans through fluids and contaminated clothes or bedding, according to the CDC.

The monkey pox rash consists of raised, fluid-filled bumps, and is usually accompanied by fever, headache and lymph node swelling. Bed bug bites, on the other hand, cause a swollen and red area that may or may not be itchy, without the other symptoms.

Sievers, who was sitting near the bathroom on the plane, recalled the worried looks from other passengers when it became clear she was the cause of the quarantine.

“You could see them thinking, ‘Is it safe to use the bathroom?’” she told WLS.

After studying the rash and searching for other signs of infectious disease, health officials released Sievers and her fellow passengers.

“Medical staff at CDC and the Chicago Department of Public Health reviewed the case and, based on the patient’s symptoms and photographs of the rash, it does not appear that the signs and symptoms are consistent with a monkey pox infection,” the CDC said in a statement. “The ill passenger was advised to seek medical care and the rest of the passengers were released from the plane.”

Dr. Donald Henderson, a professor of medicine and public health at the University of Pittsburgh and former director of the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness, said the quarantine was an unusual and unhelpful move.

“In the exceptional circumstance in which a passenger with a serious transmissible disease is discovered on a plane, the best course of action would be to explain to the passengers what the disease might be and to give them instructions to contact their physicians and to call a designated CDC emergency number should they develop any one of a number of symptoms,” he said. “The worst thing that can be done is to spread alarm and concern, delay air travel, and publicly exercise an array of unnecessary emergency measures.”

Dr. Martin Cetron, director of quarantine for the CDC, said health officials board planes to investigate possible infectious diseases upward of 40 times a month. The flights are usually delayed only a few minutes, and passengers might not even be aware of it. But two or three times a year there is a significant delay, like the one at Chicago Midway, he said.

After two agonizing hours on the tarmac, passengers were happy to learn that the rash was not the result of something more serious.

“Of course, you’re relieved when they say it is just a case of bug bites,” passenger Kayla Sanders told WLS.

Yes we understand the relief of a very bad situation turning into a case of the bed bugs but, people still will have to have their luggage and bodies inspected for bed bugs and possibly some bed bug treatments may be needed.

Should the airline be responsible for any associated bed bug problems these poor people face because of this?

K-9, canine dogs have an amazing sense of smell, that when trained right are able to sniff out bed bugs, bed bug larvae, and bed bug infestations.

A K-9’s or canines nose not only dominates their face, but their brain, as well. In fact, a K-9 relies on their sense of smell to interpret their world by sniffing, in much the same way as people depend on their sight.

In order to understand how great a K-9’s olfactory ability to sniff out bed bugs we can compare it to a person’s nose.

Inside the nose of both species are bony scroll-shaped plates, called turbinates, over which air passes. A microscopic view of this organ reveals a thick, spongy membrane that contains most of the scent-detecting cells, as well as the nerves that transport information to the brain. In humans, the area containing these odor analyzers is about one square inch, or the size of a postage stamp. If you could unfold this area in a dog, on the other hand, it may be as large as 60 square inches, or just under the size of a piece of typing paper.

Though the size of this surface varies with the size and length of the dog’s nose, even flat-nosed breeds can detect smells far better than people. Specialized .K-9’s or canines trained to sniff out bed bugs can have over 300,000 million scent receptors compared ot a human having only 5 million.

A dog’s brain is also specialized for identifying scents. The percentage of the dog’s brain that is devoted to analyzing smells is actually 40 times larger than that of a human! It’s been estimated that dogs can identify smells somewhere between 1,000 to 10,000 times better than nasally challenged humans can.

For thousands of years K-9’s or canine dogs have been known to have an amazing sense of smell due to the millions of smell receptors located in their noses. K-9 dogs have been used for hunting by early man through out the ages. These canines have been know to be able to help track down prey from miles away, enabling their handlers/masters to find their quarry in order to hunt it. K-9 dogs have and are still used to sniff out or track scents, such as escaped prisoners in order to find them. The dogs are able to lock onto the scent of clothing and sniff out where the escapes or missing persons are located. These dogs are called blood hounds. K-9 dogs are also used for finding dead bodies that are buried. The canines can be trained to lock on to the specific smell of a decomposing corpse and sniff out where it is buried or located. These dogs can easily detect the hidden body from smell, where as, a human can’t smell a thing. Many a K-9 has helped solve an unsolved disappearance or murder just by using it’s nose.

Recently, in the last decade or so, K-9 dogs have been found out to have the ability to sniff out bed bugs, bed bug larvae, and bed bug infestations. The smell receptors on the .K-9 dog’s noses are so much more advanced than human noses that they are able to even pinpoint where the bed bug infestation is located.

K-9’s or canines are the best possible solution for sniffing out bed bug infestations and pinpointing where they are located.

The Entomological Society of America’s Eastern Branch Annual Meeting will be held March 16-19, 2012 at the Hilton Hartford Hotel

“Bed bugs are coming back. Are you ready?” asks Dr. Changlu Wang, Rutgers University entomologist and organizer of the Bed Bug and Urban Integrated Pest Management symposium. Bed bugs have become problematic pests of schools, houses, apartments and other public spaces.

Noted bed bug researchers and educators will discuss innovative bed bug control and education methods developed by leading researchers and educators in a symposium to be held on Sunday morning, March 18, from 8:00 am-12:00 noon, at the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Branch of the Entomological Society of America in Hartford, CT (see http://bit.ly/z3Lt2h).

Brown marmorated stinkbugs, first reported in Pennsylvania in the late 1990’s seem to be everywhere are everywhere we live, plus fields, orchards and vineyards. These insect emit a foul-smelling substance that can taint produce, and their feeding damages crops. Their growing populations have caused significant economic impact on agriculture.

Two symposia will discuss the latest findings on stink bug biology and trends in attempts to control these insects. “Managing Brown Marmorated Stink Bug Today and in the Future” will discuss the insect’s impact on vegetable crops and urban landscapes, and methologies to control it. This symposium will be held on Sunday afternoon, March 18 from 1:00-5:00 pm. A symposium on brown marmorated stink bug biology and crop impact will be held on Monday morning, 8:00-12:00 pm, March 19.

These symposia will headline the ESA Eastern Branch’s 83rd Annual Meeting, to be held March 16-19, 2012, at the Hilton Hartford. The three-day meeting will draw entomologists from northeastern and mid-Atlantic states and several Canadian provinces. Other symposia will feature papers on biological control, insects as vectors of human and plant disease, and detection of new and emerging insect pests. Graduate and undergraduate students throughout the eastern region will compete in oral and poster presentations about their research.

Growers, crop consultants, landscapers and other interested members of the public can attend the symposia with a half day ($40) or full day ($60) admission.

The meeting will include a free public program for all ages, “It’s a Bug’s World” (see http://bit.ly/xeTfIN). This event will be held on Saturday, March 17 from 10:00 am-3:00 pm at the Hilton Hartford. “Bug’s World” will feature informational displays, demonstrations and activities, and a pollinator talk and honey tasting with the 2012 American Honey Princess, Danielle Dale.

The full meeting Program

The Entomological Society of America is the largest organization in the world dedicated to the science, magic, and mystery of the world’s most abundant life form – insects. With more than 6,000 active members, the ESA helps to promote understanding of insects and solve world problems associated with them, including world hunger, disease prevention, and urban pest control. ESA is a 501c(3) not-for-profit membership society headquartered in Lanham, MD.

For more information about the Entomological Society’s program, or for a press pass, contact Faith Kuehn, Delaware Department of Agriculture at (302) 698-4587 or Faith.Kuehn@state.de.us. The Hilton Hartford is located at 315 Trumbull St., Hartford, CT 06103, telephone 860-728-5151.

Bed bugs are becoming a national problem that needs community attention to help stopping the spread of these parasitic creatures especially when it comes to our children.

Schools are great breeding grounds and transition areas for children to bring home bed bugs.  This is just another example of a school being infested with bed bugs and how hard it is to track down where these pesky critters are coming from.

In the article, it points out that a bed bug dog was brought in but, no bed bugs were found in the school.  The bed bugs could be getting on the kids clothing from the buses or after-school activities.

As parents, you can take precautions for keeping your children safe from bed bugs.  When they come home  have them change out of their school clothes, empty their book bags, and put them in your dryer on high heat for a cycle.  The heat will kill any bed bugs that have hitchhiked their way into your home.

A bed bug found at a Wilkes-Barre elementary school late last week is getting under the skin of parents and students alike. It’s the second time it’s happened in a span of two weeks.

This time, the bug was found on a child’s jacket inside a classroom at Kistler Elementary School. It was found as classes prepared to dismiss Friday afternoon.

And while school administrators say they’re confident the problem has been eliminated, parents and students remain less than convinced.

Exterminators searched every nook and cranny of Kistler Elementary School over the weekend. They even brought in a trained dog to sniff out and eliminate any possibility of bed bugs here.

None were found.

Parent Bruce Morris noted, “It’s something we have to watch out for. I think most of us, as parents, grew up thinking it was just a nursery rhyme. But here we have a nationwide problem.”

Plenty of people were talking about the critter issue Monday morning– including students who say the thought of the tiny creatures makes their skin crawl.

Najae Briggs, a Kistler student, said, “I’ve heard people have gotten bit before, a lot of people. And people were staying home, yeah.”

Parents say they’re even more concerned by this second finding of a bed bug at Kistler elementary. And they’re upset that school officials didn’t tell them anything about it.

But the superintendent says a letter is going home with kids after school Monday to explain the problem to parents– and the steps the school district has taken to solve it.

Those included the weekend extermination, and having students quarantine their jackets and backpacks in plastic bags Monday, among others solutions.

But since the bed bugs could be coming into the school from just about anywhere, parents say it will take a community-wide effort to end the issue.

Morris continued, “This being the second scare in the school, I think we need to take extra precautions when our children leave our houses in the morning, when we pick them up from school, and a lot of these kids get bussed to other places like the YMCA.”

And while we’re told the exterminator’s sweep of the school came up clean– officials are urging parents to keep an eye out for the little critters– and wash all their kids’ clothes in hot water as an extra precaution.

LINCOLN (KPTM)- University of Nebraska officials have found bed bugs in about 35 campus dorm rooms at UNL.

The university is relying on bug sniffing dog to help find and get rid of a growing problem. Spots the dog is helping sniff out the problem. Monday the university shared some video of Spots at work.

“Spots can basically walk by a piece of furniture and with in two to three feet. If the scent of a bed bug is there he can detect it,” James Pelowski said. Pelowski helps spot in the bed bug detection process.

Spots is a rat terrier that has a 95% accuracy rate detecting bed bugs. “That is the best that any drug dog, bomb dog or bed bug dog comes out of the academy at.”

Pelowski said what makes spots so valuable is that a human is only 50% accurate. “Through a dorm room or any place you have to go item through item through item, it’s almost virtually impossible without a dog.”

Once bed bugs are found cleaning crews install heating units in the room to bring the temperature up to between 130 and 140 degrees. At 140 degrees a room is locked down for about four hours.

After the cleaning crew tears down its equipment, Spots does one final sweep. University officials said they plan on bringing in two more bug sniffing dogs next week. They hope to have every dorm checked by the end of the month.

Bed bugs are one of the only animals on our planet known to get stronger by inbreeding.  A recent study has come to terms that bed bugs are fighting back against us humans by inbreeding.

New research on the bed bug’s ability to withstand the genetic bottleneck of inbreeding, recently announced at the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) annual meeting, provides new clues to explain the rapidly growing problem of bed bugs across the United States and globally. After mostly disappearing in the US in the 1950s, the common bed bug (Cimex lectularius) has reappeared with a vengeance over the past decade. These stubborn pests have developed a resistance to the insecticides, known as pyrethroids, commonly used against them.

One of the newly discovered factors that appears to be contributing to the bed bugs’ effective infestation is their ability to establish new infestations through inbreeding. Coby Schal, PhD, and Ed Vargo, PhD, both entomologists at North Carolina State University (NCSU), and colleagues carried out two studies now under peer-review examining the genetics of bed bugs from three multi-story apartment buildings in North Carolina and New Jersey, and determined that there were high levels of relatedness within each apartment and very low genetic diversity within each building, indicating that infestations start from just one or two introductions of the insect. Being able to withstand a very high level of inbreeding — i.e., still produce healthy offspring — allows the bed bug infestation to expand to other apartments within the building.

Another study by this team confirmed this same conclusion based on a study of 21 bed bug infestations from Maine to Florida in the US, nearly all of which came from single rooms within homes. “Inbreeding gives bed bugs an advantage in being able to colonize,” said Schal. “A single female that has been mated is able to colonize and start a new infestation. Her progeny and brothers and sisters can then mate with each other, exponentially expanding the population. With many organisms, extensive inbreeding would cause serious mutations that would eventually bring about an end to the population.” He also noted that cockroach populations are also able to survive inbreeding.

A major strategic advantage that we might want to explore in this bed bug fight, and it may seem unproductive at this time, but may pay a huge benifit in the future is to introduce female bed bugs into the mix that do not have a resistance to any chemicals.  This would, in theory, create colonies of bed bugs that do not have any resistance to our extermination procedures or chemicals.

Until then, there is really only one proven and effective way to kill bed bugs and that is heat.

Bed bugs invade Tampa fire station: MyFoxTAMPABAY.com

Bed Bugs have invaded another firehouse, this time in Tampa, Florida.  Bed bugs have been spreading all around the US, invading homes, businesses, government buildings, and firehouses.  Makes you think why are bed bugs invading these fire houses?  Well one simple explanation is that when fire fighters go to a call in which a house is on fire the heat from the fire causes the bed bugs to come out and find a means of escape.  Bed bugs can easily develop resistance against pesticides, such as DDT but this is not possible against heat.  Heat, especially from a fire is a bed bugs worst enemy.

My thinking is that the bed bugs can feel the heat from the fire and escape on the first human body that is around.  That being a firefighter or his equipment.  Fire fighters need to be ever vigilant when going out on a call that they take precautions on returning to the fire station.

Fire fighters should launder their clothes before or as soon as these items are brought back into the fire station.  All equipment should be stored in a central location where it can be cleaned and inspected for bed bugs.  If bed bugs are present, any equipment that can be treated with heat should be done at this time.  Any equipment that is heat sensitive or can not fit into a heating chamber or dryer should be wiped down with rubbing alchohol.

SEATTLE — The mere mention of the Internal Revenue Service is enough to make most people squirm, but now some of the agency’s own employees are feeling queasy after discovering bedbugs in their office.

An IRS worker first spotted a single bedbug at the Seattle office in October. An exterminator trapped a second bug, and that was enough for IRS officials to send in the hounds.

Exterminators use dogs trained to sniff out the insects, and the dog who canvassed the IRS offices didn’t find any more bugs.

Exterminator Grant Gummow didn’t help with the IRS case, but he suspects the bedbugs discovered in the Federal Building hitched a ride to work from an employee’s home.

“You have your purse next to your bed, or a bag. The bedbugs crawl into the bag, you carry it and have bedbugs at work,” Gummow said.

It’s never easy finding bedbugs, and Gummow said that because office chairs are perfect hiding spaces for the insects, finding them in a large office building can be even more difficult.

An IRS employee anonymously complained about seeing another bedbug several weeks ago, but agency officials say no more bugs have been found at the office.

They say they’ll continue to monitor the situation.

Here is a story about taxpayer money being wasted because pest control operatives and doctors misdiagnosed a rampant bed bug infestation in a Tennessee emergency management center, closing the building, and leaving the emergency responders sleeping on cots for a week.

LEBANON, Tenn. – Pest control crews have been working to clear a bed bug infestation from the Wilson County Emergency Management Agency’s Station.

About a week ago, officials at WEMA realized bed bugs were biting employees as they slept. For five nights, employees had to sleep on cots in the training center across the street.

At first pest control companies thought Station One’s bunk was infested with fleas, and at one point, doctors treated employees for shingles before realizing bed bugs were the problem.

For one thing, flea bites look nothing like bed bug bites and for another if my doctor told me I had shingles, when in fact it was bed bug bites, I would be shopping around for a new doctor.

On Monday, a company pumped hot air into the station to kill the bed bugs.

This rampant bed bug infestation caused sleep deprivation for the emergency responders, one thing that is highly needed in this job.

“They have to be ready to go at any time. What little sleep they do get, they can’t be deprived of it, so we need to get these bugs out of here and make sure they rest calmly when they come in from a job,” said an official.

Employees were told they would be able to return to Station One today.

The town of Lebanon, Tennessee could have saved a lot of time, aggravation, and money had they called in a canine bed bug inspection team. Not only would they have been able to quickly and efficiently been able to verify the bed bug problem, they would have been able to pinpoint it. The pinpointing of the bed bug infestation in the station house would have allowed them to target bed bug infested areas instead of super-heating the whole building, which can be very costly.

Avoiding Bed Bugs This Holiday Season While Flying

With the holiday season upon us a lot of people will be traveling to their families homes by airplane.  What a great way to pick up bed bugs and bring them to your relatives houses.  I am sure that a bed bug infestation is not the gift you want to be remembered as giving.  Here are some precautions you can take to help lower your chance of bringing bed bugs to you relatives homes by airplane.

1.  Bring your own pillow and blanket. In Zane Selkirk’s horrific experience, it was the blanket “crawling with bed bugs” that caught her eye. It doesn’t have to get that extreme, though, to suggest it’s best to beware airline blankets. After all, during last year’s H1N1 flu epidemic, many airlines pulled the blankets fearing they could transmit the virus. Pack a travel pillow (inflatable if you’re tight for space) and a blanket or pashmina shawl. Or just dress in warm layers instead.

2.  Plastic Bag Your Carry On Since it’s way to easy for bed bugs to slip into your carry on while it’s stored under your seat. The best way to prevent this happening is to encase it in a plastic bag, such as a shopping bag or kitchen-sized garbage bag.

3.  Stop bed bugs before they get in your house.   The real problem with bed bugs isn’t when they bite you en route (the bites heal quickly and don’t cause any lasting damage), it’s when they come home with you and set up housekeeping in your home. The way to keep this from happening is with stringent preventive measures. Don’t bring luggage or carry-on’s inside your home, but empty them outside and wash clothes and anything else that’s washable. A hot dryer will also kill bed bugs, so dry anything you don’t want to wash. Put the suitcase and bag itself in a plastic bag and store for two weeks.

We at New England Bed Bug Forum wish you and your families a happy, safe, and bed bug free holiday season.