Infestation Of Bed Bugs On Plane
Posted on 28 February 2011 by LynThomas in Health, Travel
Once thought to have been eradicated, the legendary bed bugs pests, are making an unwelcome comeback worldwide, as these competent little travelers stow away in luggage and clothing. From pilots, to business travelers, bed bugs are being unwittingly spread abroad.
One passenger claims that bed bugs have managed to infiltrate airplanes. She says she was attacked by bed bugs while aboard a British Airways flight from L.A. to Bangalore.
28-year-old Zane Selkirk, a business executive for the Internet company Yahoo!’s media group, says she first noticed the bed bugs on her airline-provided blanket and her finger, about three hours into the first leg of her flight, which was from L.A. to London’s Heathrow Airport. She also said she had been bitten on a flight to Bangalore a few weeks earlier.
“During the first flight, I turned on my light to find bugs crawling on my blanket and a bedbug-blood-spattered shirt.” On the return Bangalore to London journey, she says she left the 10-hour flight to find her body covered with 90 bug bites. “The worst part was the non-existent customer service throughout the ten-day ordeal.”
Unhappy with BA’s initial response, Selkirk posted photos of her bites on the Internet.
A BA spokesman confirmed that two aircraft were taken out and treated before being allowed back into service. The airline fumigated one of the planes on which it confirmed there had been an infestation and apologized to the woman for her ordeal.
Officials in New York, where there are 1.1 million students and 100,000 teachers, last year admitted the bed bug scourge had reached ‘an unprecedented rate of spread’.
They pledged $500,000 to raise public awareness.
A protocol for dealing with cases was introduced in schools, along with the aim of more communication between schools and parents.
Those measures seem to have failed, because so many homes are already infested. Private homes continue to be the source of most infestations, but bed bugs travel on the clothes and bags of their hosts.
“Bed bugs need to be where people are,” Missy Henrickson, of the National Pest Management Association, told NBC New York. “So when you have homes infested with bed bugs, students who live there are bringing them into schools.”
As bed bugs are not believed to be disease carriers, the damage is psychological rather than long term physical discomfort. The bugs can go a whole year without eating, making them very difficult to eradicate. Getting rid of them requires persistence.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
[...] The legendary bed bugs pests, one thought to have been eradicated, are making an unwelcome comeback worldwide, as these competent little travelers stow away in clothing and luggage. Read what happens when there is an infestation on a commercial aircraft… [...]