Question by Kat:
Random question about bed bugs and other blood insects?
I just had a random weird thought and wanna know if there is anything to it. So bed bugs and several other bugs live off of human blood right? Ok, so what if someone in your apartment complex or maybe even in the same apartment with you has HIV or AIDS can it spread through them? If a single bug feeds off more than one person in a short period of time, wouldn’t they be dropping blood from the previous into the bite? Totally random but I’m kinda curious.
Best answer:
Answer by MagnusMoss
No.
Insects that drink human blood don’t inject blood into you anymore then you would throw up your breakfast onto your lunch.
Diseases that use insectsas vectors generally have to be able to infect the insect, spread through their body, and infect their saliva. This is actually a rather complex process, diseases that do it are specialists.
Insects are cold blooded, and HIV doesn’t last long outside of body temperature.
The insect’s immune system would attack the virus, and HIV is only equipped to evade human immune systems.
Bed bugs are tiny and don’t move veryfast. The blood on the mouth would dry long before the bedbug could get hungry again and walk to a new victim. Blood in the insect would be digested.
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