Bed bugs diseases
Bed bugs are the blood-sucking parasites that can cause certain skin infections. These hardy insects, which can survive for a long period without food or under adverse temperature conditions, are not considered as an important factor in disease transmission.
The major injury caused by them is the skin injury that depends on the structure of their mouthparts. Most commonly they attack the exposed skin of a person. Though they are painless, pruritus macules may appear. They usually bite on the face, neck, hands, arms, lower legs. Papules, urticaria, or bullae may predominate together with signs of secondary infection. The bullae are only rarely severe. A hemorrhagic puncta may be evident by their bite. If a person is not sensitized, no symptoms may be evident, only a purpuric macule at the bite site. Bites are often noted in linear groups of 3, sometimes called "breakfast, lunch, and dinner," evident as erythematous papules, sometimes with a prominent urticarial component in predisposed individuals. Though in laboratory, it has been found that bed bugs carry the causative agents for several diseases such as anthrax, plage, tularemia, yellow fever, relapsing fever, and typhus. However, it is evident that they cannot carry these disease organisms under normal conditions.
The bites often occur in nights by these nocturnal parasites. Bedbug bites can create considerable anxiety and localized and occasionally systemic reactions. Sometimes, if the bite reactions are intensely pruritic, scratching with excoriations may be complicated by impetigo. Bedbugs may be a vector for hepatitis B and in endemic areas, for American trypanosomiasis (Chagas disease). The bed bugs while biting often inject different pharmacologically active substances for example, hyaluronidase, proteases and kinins, which may cause different skin reactions such as, erythema, wheal, vesicle, hemorrhagic nodule. The type of reaction provoked depends on previous exposure; repeated bites may lead to an allergic reaction, which may lead to pronounced cutaneous manifestations. Some patients show a severe systemic hypersensitivity to arthropod allergens. The site of the bite can also become secondarily infected with bacteria infection and lead to ecthyma, cellulitis, and/or lymphangitis