New research suggests bed bugs are a medically important threat, according to an article on the Infection Control Today website.
A North Carolina State University study shows that histamine levels are substantially higher in areas bed-bug-infested areas and that these histamine levels persist for months after the bed bugs have been eliminated.
“Histamine levels in bed bug-infested homes were at least 20 times higher than histamine levels in homes without bed bugs,” the study's author said. “And these levels didn’t decrease much three months after treating the infested homes with heat and insecticides.”
Bed bugs naturally give off high levels of histamine in their feces. They use histamine as a marker of a good place to aggregate.
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