The bedbugs of the beds have gone from being a gigantic health problem worldwide to disappear almost completely from our lives, except to come back in vain in spite of us in the last 15 years. Compared to a time, at least, we know how to fight them with insecticides, without damaging our health.
The problem, however, says a study published on Journal of Medical entomologyis that the bed bedbugs are changing and developing a sort of immunity to certain chemicals.
A little story. Notes since the time of ancient Greece (Aristotle also speaks of it), always present in the life of human beings, the bedbugs of the beds, which At one time they were even used for medical purposes (it was said that they took care of ears infections), they were a huge health problem for centuries – a question that began to really solve itself only after the Second World War, when The “chemical revolution” endowed us with powerful weapons such as the DDT.
From the DDT to FIPRONIL. The DDT, however, being very toxic, and has already been banned from the seventies. For a certain period, in its place the Dieldrinahowever, also removed from trade in the eighties as toxic. Not completely disappeared, however: it served as a basis to develop a further insecticide, the FIPRONILwhich has never been prohibited and that is used for example in anti -prosecutors for pets.
Indestructible bedbugs. The problem, however, is that the bedbugs of the beds did not passively witness this armament race, but they reacted. A genome analysis of 134 in various US populations, whose “representatives” come from 22 different states, has in fact demonstrated the presence of one mutation in a gene known as A302S RDI. Mutation already known to science, given that it is the one who developed the cockroaches in the 1940s to defend himself from Dieldrina.
Genetic mutation. The chemical similarities between Dieldrina and Fipronil imply that this mutation gives those who bring it considerable resistance to the second. In simpler words, the bed bedbugs are becoming resistant to Fipronileven if the study specifies that We do not know if it is a recent evolution or if the mutation appeared before even the insecticide invention. The irrefutable data remains: the bed bugs are becoming resistant to the chemicals we use and this in the long term could become a huge problem.
