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Bed-bugs biting Down Under
Friday, February 3, 2006 Posted: 0513 GMT (1313 HKT)
![]() A bed-bug engorged with blood after feeding on a human arm. RELATEDYOUR E-MAIL ALERTSSYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) -- Australia is suffering a bed-bug epidemic with the tourism industry losing an estimated A$100 million (US$75 million) a year because of the blood-sucking insects, according to a new entomology study. Some pest controllers have reported more than a 1,000 percent rise in bed-bug outbreaks, said the Institute for Clinical Pathology & Medical Research at Sydney's Westmead Hospital. The institute said outbreaks in Australia, part of a global epidemic of bed bugs, was a result of changing pest control measures and a rise in travelers visiting exotic locations. "Bed bugs haven't been a serious public health problem in Australia for about 50 years prior to their current resurgence," Institute medical entomologist Stephen Doggett said on Friday. Doggett said pest control in the past usually involved insect sprays, which also killed bed bugs, but new environmentally friendly practices such as insect baits, had no effect on bed bugs. "Motels use to be sprayed for cockroaches, but now they use cockroach baits and bed bugs are blood suckers so the baits have little impact," he said. Bed bugs are wingless, brown insects, oval in shape and measuring around four millimeters in length when fully grown. The two main species that bite humans are the common bed bug (Cimex lectularius) and the tropical bed bug (Cimex hemipterus). Some people suffer blood poisoning as a result of bites. Bed bugs prefer dark locations close to where people sleep so they can feed on human blood at night. They usually nest in mattresses, particularly in the seams, under floorboards and carpets, inside bed frames and slats and behind skirting boards. The chairman of Backpacking Queensland, Dean Cooper, said accommodation operators in the tropical northern state were losing money by closing rooms to treat bed-bug outbreaks. "It can sometimes be a minimum two or three days that you'll have a room out of action -- a couple of hundred dollars just for that particular room, and then you have possible reinfestation problems down the track," Copper told Australian radio. Queensland's Tourism Industry Council will hold a bed-bug summit next Tuesday to discuss combating the biting problem. Copyright 2006 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ![]()
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