The current infestation began 10 years ago, shortly after the Sydney Olympics. Since that time it has spread world wide. The question researchers will seek to answer is exactly where the epidemic came from.
One theory is that the world wide bed bug infestation came from Africa. Tony and his team will therefore be going to Kenya. Whereas bedbugs had died out in much of the world for a number of years, possibly because of powerful insecticides, which are now banned, they have been present continually in Kenya.
Other theories about the bed bugs are that they emerged from tiny pockets in England. London in particular has a raging bed bug infestation at this time.
The world-wide infestation is costing millions of dollars to treat and has been the subject of law suits against infested hotels and against pest control companies who treated homes that became reinfected One particular use of the DNA testing will be to determine where infestations came from. If an exterminator treats a home and bed bugs return, genetic testing will tell the family whether the new infestation was related to the old infestation or not.
