Disease and my favorite bug is in the news once again – The Kissing Bug, apparently the dreaded Bedbug may now transmit a similar disease carried by the Kissing Bug.

In a study published online this week in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, senior author Michael Z. Levy, PhD, assistant professor in the department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, and researchers at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru conducted a series of laboratory experiments that demonstrated bi-directional transmission of T. cruzi between mice and bed bugs.

So if you live in the South I highly recommend making sure your screens are in place, wear repellent when hiking an if you have horses or cattle keep an eye out for the Kissing Bugs

and

If traveling store your suitcase or luggage in the bathroom until you make an inspection of your hotel room, don’t accept or purchase furniture with inspecting it as well.