Many healthcare workers who used the room arrived with luggage from overseas for short term work. Other infestations concerned a patient who was bitten after sleeping on a bed imported from the United States and patients bitten after arriving with luggage from Australia. A fourth infestation concerned a healthcare worker whose home became infested despite no recent history of travel, acquisition of furniture or furnishings, or report of infestation in neighbouring dwellings. The infestation was successfully treated with insecticides. Three months later the patient's parents, resident at a different location, were bitten, which suggests that bugs transferred with personal effects had taken three months to become apparent.
Bedbugs can live for six months without feeding.
The bugs feed on sleeping patients and hide during the day. They are apparent only if a special search is made at night. Superficially they resemble lentils, being round and flat. Awareness of the possibility of infestation is important because otherwise patients may be misdiagnosed as having scabies or other skin conditions or may be dismissed as being parasitophobic. As data on infestations are not systematically collected it is not possible to relate the increase in cases reported here to an overall trend, but it does raise the possibility of a real increase, which may be associated with international trade and travel.