Studies show that flies really do spread germs and they carry more diseases than originally thought.
Flies are not only annoying, but they are incredibly unhygienic. They land on your worktops and meals, without knowing where their legs and wings have been. They are teeming with germs and pathogens as the pest’s land on dead carcasses and faeces. They then spread the bacteria to new, clean surfaces.
Scientists have been studying the microbiomes of 116 houseflies and blowflies from three different continents. The scientists found in some cases, the flies carried hundreds of thousands of different species of bacteria, and some of them have been proven very harmful to humans.
The risk of picking up a bug from the flies increases if there are more people about. This is because city flies are more germ ridden than country ones.
For a long time, scientists have believed that flies carried and spread diseases as they are always around us.
A study that was published in the journal Scientific Reports investigated the microbial content of fly body parts, including legs and wings. When the investigation had been completed, the legs appeared to transfer most germs to one surface to the other.
Blowflies and houseflies are often exposed to unhygienic areas as they use faeces and decaying materials to nurture their young. According to the study, the flies that were collected from stables carried less bacteria than those collected from urban areas.
A pathogen known to cause ulcers in the gut is mainly found in blowflies, located in Brazil. Helicobacter Pylori has never been considered to cause the disease, until now.