This Reuters piece was about how passengers on Nigerian motorcycle taxis were putting calabashes and portions of tires on their heads to avoid using the taxi’s passenger helmets, under a new law that requires motorcycle riders to wear helmets.

Newspapers quoted passengers as saying they feared the helmets could be laced with magic spells so as to knock the wearer unconscious and make them easier to rob, while others feared they would pick up an infection.

But the interesting point was this:

One columnist said transportation can already carry a health risk, and recounted how he had picked up a bedbug while sitting on a bus.

“The story is that people who have scabies, craw-craw, ringworm, dandruff and all other such diseases would easily infect others with them through the helmets,” Steve Nwosu wrote in the Daily Sun.

I’m not sure I’d want to share helmets with New York City motorcycle taxi riders either.

But Reuters readers should be aware you can get bed bugs from planes, subways, buses, and trams in Manhattan, Toronto, Prague, and the City of London, just as you can in Capetown or Lagos.

Enjoy!
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• Residents sue motel on Staten Island due to bed bugs

A Times (UK) article today on the spread of bed bugs emphasized the role of travel, specifically, the spread of bed bugs in public transportation:

Savvas Othon, technical director at Rentokil, said: “The short turnaround times for planes and other forms of transport means they are sometimes not inspected as thoroughly as they used to be. What should happen is a good vacuum around the back of seats and in the creases of seats. Any small gap is ideal for a bedbug, which can go for quite some time without a meal.”

Pest Control company Rentokil said it was now treating all kinds of public vehicles for bed bugs:

Rentokil says that it has seen a 24 per cent increase in work related to airlines, a 51 per cent increase in road-related call-outs, a 59 per cent jump in the shipping sector and a 9 per cent rise on rail in the past 12 months, compared with the year before.

“Bedbug infestations will continue to rise,” Mr Othon said. “Delays at airports don’t help as people sit in airport terminals, take things out of their bags and the bedbug jumps out and goes in search of another source of blood.”

While the general public is starting to think about hotel rooms as potential sites of infestation, it’s helpful to see a major newspaper highlighting the spread of bed bugs in airports, airplanes, trains, cars, and ships.

Awareness is key, as David Cain of Bed-bugs.co.uk stressed to the Times:

He said: “The number one reason for the spread of bedbugs is the lack of public awareness. People simply do not know how to detect them in the way they would have done in the 1950s and 1960s.

“They are a problem on buses, trains and subway systems, and on cruise ships too — any form of transport where there is a high turnover, really. Recently, on an overground train in South London, I pulled at the parting of the upholstery and found at least four months of dirt and debris.”

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The Bangkok Post reports today that trains on the Ubon Ratchathani-Bangkok lines in northeastern Thailand are being “cleaned” and “refurbished” after travelers complained of bed bugs.

Train carriages on northeastern lines are being refurbished at a cost of 17.5 million baht after they were found infested with bed bugs.

State Railway acting governor Nakorn Chantasorn said he ordered the cloth-covered seat cushions in 39 Daewoo diesel train carriages replaced with cushions made of artificial leather.

The refurbishing was prompted by loud complaints of infestations of bed bugs on trains between Bangkok and the northeastern provinces.

“Loud complaints”: this does not sound good!

Work will be completed by the Songkran Festival in April.

I hope the “cleaning” is thorough and suspect a good dose of pesticides may also be needed.  Officials should be aware that artificial leather seats will still be prone to infestation, as will the carriages themselves.

I am glad the Thai State Railway is dealing with this and hope that other railways will start to be more alert. French overnight trains were known to be infested last year. We’ve heard informal reports of people encountering them in other trains.

This can happen anywhere.Similar Posts:

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First, don’t panic. What you do after discovering you and your luggage may have been exposed to bed bugs can make a big difference as to whether you take them home. It’s worth proceeding carefully and cautiously since avoiding an infestation can save you thousands of dollars and months of trouble and discomfort.

First, learn a little bit about the enemy. Read the Bed Bugs 101 FAQs on this site, and use the links to bed bug photos to learn what bed bugs look like at different life stages.

Click to download this PDF of this comprehensive article by entomologists Steven Kells and Jeff Hahn of the University of Minnesota, which describes the steps you should take if you’ve been exposed to bed bugs. Remember you have the most chance of avoiding bringing bed bugs home if you take the necessary steps before getting in your car or going to your home or anyone else’s home. It is possible to spread bed bugs to your car as well as to other locations. Following the steps in the PDF carefully as soon as you realize the exposure to bed bugs means you probably won’t bring any with you.

If you already are home before you realize the problem, do follow the same steps listed in the PDF regarding inspecting luggage (do it over the bathtub so you can see the bugs and kill them easily) and cleaning luggage, clothing, and other items. If you are home before you realize the problem, and you brought possibly infested items in (including the clothing you’re wearing as well as any luggage), then you should quickly do some major cleaning where the luggage has been brought in and where you sleep (vacuuming, steaming, etc). If you brought home a bed bug or two and have not found them, it is sometimes possible to get rid of them before they take root. Even if you don’t find any bed bugs, and you’ve done all the cleaning and followed all the other steps in the PDF, you might consider taking some time to declutter, so that if you do have any bed bugs, the signs will be more visible. You should be on the alert for several months.

Once home, if you do find bed bugs or signs of bed bugs in your luggage, clothing or in any rooms, call a PCO right away (we have a FAQ on choosing a good one who knows bed bugs). Save any samples to show them.

Finally, if you got your bed bugs in a hotel, hostel, or other accommodations, please do leave a review on Tripadvisor.com, to warn others of your experience.

A note about using freezing temperatures to kill bed bugs: Kells and Hahn and Michael Potter have slightly different ideas about the temperatures and length of time needed to kill bed bugs. According to Michael Potter’s article from the January 2007 PCTOnline, Steven Kells is apparently researching the method of “leaving things out in cold weather,” with the inevitable fluctuations in temperature. For now, until we have definitive data, I’d err on the side of caution and go for colder temperatures and longer time frames wherever possible.Similar Posts:

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Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that bed bugs have been found on French SNCF overnight trains from Nice to Metz. New bookings have been suspended for a week while the three affected coaches have been taken out of service and “disinfected”.

“In summer the risks of infestation are much greater because of the heat. As a result we’ve stepped up our cleaning routine for the sleeping compartments,” an official said.

Well, now that bed bugs are an epidemic everywhere, we should expect bed bug infestations year round, anywhere. And not just on overnight services, either. Cleaning routines need to be altered and stepped up in all areas where bed bugs can take root, including normal seats on trains and other transportation modes.

Pest control experts should be helping organizations of all kinds plan protocols to prevent bed bugs, and protocols for dealing with bed bugs should an infestation occur. Train, bus, and airline personnel should be trained to clean preventively, and taught to recognize the more subtle signs of bed bugs.

By “subtle signs of bed bugs,” I mean more subtle than, for example, people running, screaming, from a train overnight compartment, screaming “Mon Dieu!”

Update (8/4):

Apparently Reuters offered another take on the same story, as shown in the Scotsman, here. I think you’ll find it interesting:

Bed bugs were a rare occurrence, [an unnamed SNCF official] added.

“It’s the kind of little animal that unfortunately you’ll only notice when they bite. There’s no other way to detect them. They are so small.”

Contrasting with the promises to step up cleaning procedures (as per the AFP story), this statement about the impossibility of detection is only somewhat accurate. It is difficult to find actual bed bugs, but not because they are small. Yes, 1st instar nyphs are only 1/32″ or 1 mm long, but adults are 1/6″ or 6 mm long. If they sat around in plain view, you’d have no trouble seeing them. They’re extremely stealthy and can hide in the thinnest cracks–instead of letting SNCF off the hook for not finding bed bugs, this speaks to the need for more careful searching and more thorough cleaning to detect and prevent them.

And it is not impossible to see their signs; housekeeping staff, porters, repair workers, and ticket collectors, and others who work in hotels, hostels, sleeper cars, other train cars, planes, and buses can and should be trained to look for subtler signs of bed bugs: fecal stains, fecal specks, and bloodstains (tiny, thin, or larger) on the seat, bed, or bedsheets, and bed bug cast shells, can all be watched for, as can bed bugs. Staff not trained in this way will often assume they’re seeing something innocuous (carpet beetles, roaches, whatever), when they do actually encounter a bed bug.

What’s more, bed bugs are no longer a “rare occurrence,” neither where I live in NYC, nor in France. They’re growing to epidemic proportions worldwide. Click on the Cluster Map on the inner right sidebar (at the top) if you want to see where this site’s visitors have come from since June 2nd, 2007. This SNCF official needs to be brought up to speed.Similar Posts:

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