Bedbugs bite on board the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway

Bedbugs have made an appearance on the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway, much to the ire of passengers who have discovered the tiny parasites nestled amongst the train’s seats and blankets.

The bugs were first noticed in late August by a sharp-eyed passenger who uploaded images and video of the insects on his Sina Weibo microblog.

“Beware: the beds on this train are home to blood-sucking bedbugs!” the Weibo user, nicknamed "Sanbu 112", wrote in a post. “On the evening of August 28, on the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway train number D313 … I made an early morning discovery of about seven to eight bedbugs. After squishing them to death, blood came dripping out … Later that day I discovered that the bugs had bitten my body and the bites were extremely itchy.”

Other Weibo users forwarded news of the bedbug discovery, and wrote that the High Speed Railway "ought to pay more attention to pest eradication."

"They should make the train tickets cheaper after this!" one exasperated microblogger wrote. "How can they have bedbugs on board the High Speed Railway?"

The Beijing Municipal Centre for Disease Control confirmed the existence of the bugs on Monday, and deputy director Zeng Xiaopeng said that in 2013, the number of bedbug-related incidents in China was on the rise, perhaps indicating that the “threat of the bugs was a gradually expanding trend.”