SEVERAL residents in a Yantian District community were bitten by ticks at home, Thursday s Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
The district hygiene department had sent a special team to eradicate the bugs Wednesday and suggested all residents in the community change mattresses and air their bedding in the sun for disinfection, a department official identified as Wang said.
The Yantian District People s Hospital and the city center for disease control and prevention (CDC) said there were no reports of infection from tick bites.
A growing number of bugs had been found in the community on Wutong Road and those who were bitten by the bugs had red spots all over their bodies, a resident named He said.
They were very small, the size of a rice grain, with eight legs, hiding in mattresses. After being bitten it is very itchy but people usually recover soon after treatment, He said.
The bugs could not be killed easily with pesticide bought from supermarkets. These bugs come out to bite us at night and they don t like high temperatures, so we put our mattresses and bedding in the sun, He said.
However, a hospital spokesman thought these would be bedbugs instead of ticks judging from the symptoms. There have been about five patients coming for pest bites recently, but they looked more like bedbug bites, medical affairs department director, Wu, said. Because of the incidence of tick bites in other provinces, we have had special training for tick bites and had to immediately report to the CDC when suspected cases were found, but so far we haven t seen any, he said.
The CDC had not received any reports of tick bites, Xie Xu, director of the infectious disease prevention department, said Thursday. We look into the matter only when the bites cause infectious diseases, he said.
(Wang Yuanyuan)
