Washington, Nov 25 (PTI) Flies can be more than peskypicnic crashers, they carry hundreds of different species ofharmful bacteria and may help to spread disease, a studywarns.
Researchers at the Pennsylvania State University in theUS have warned the public to avoid eating food during picnics.
In a study of the microbiomes of 116 houseflies andblowflies, they found that these flies carry hundreds ofdifferent species of bacteria, many of which are harmful tohumans.
"We believe that this may show a mechanism for pathogentransmission that has been overlooked by public healthofficials, and flies may contribute to the rapid transmissionof pathogens in outbreak situations," said Donald Bryant, fromthe Pennsylvania State University.
The researchers were able to investigate the microbialcontent of individual fly body parts, including legs andwings.
The legs appear to transfer most of the microbialorganisms from one surface to another, said Stephan Schuster,from the Pennsylvania State University.
"The legs and wings show the highest microbial diversityin the fly body, suggesting that bacteria use the flies asairborne shuttles," said Schuster.
"It may be that bacteria survive their journey, growingand spreading on a new surface. In fact, the study shows thateach step of hundreds that a fly has taken leaves behind amicrobial colony track, if the new surface supports bacterialgrowth," he said.
Blowflies and houseflies - both carrion fly species - areoften exposed to unhygienic matter because they use feces anddecaying organic matter to nurture their young, where theycould pick up bacteria that could act as pathogens to humans,plants and animals.
The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports,also indicates that blowflies and houseflies share over 50 percent of their microbiome, a mixture of host-relatedmicroorganisms and those acquired from the environments theyinhabit.
Surprisingly, flies collected from stables carried fewerpathogens than those collected from urban environments.
The researchers found 15 instances of the human pathogenHelicobacter pylori, a pathogen often causing ulcers in thehuman gut, largely in the blowfly samples.
The known route of transmission of Helicobacter has neverconsidered flies as a possible vector for the disease, saidSchuster.
"It will really make you think twice about eating thatpotato salad that's been sitting out at your next picnic,"Bryant said.
"It might be better to have that picnic in the woods, faraway from urban environments, not a central park," he said.
PTI SNESNE.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.