FlyPunch! Keeping Fruit Flies at Bay the Natural Way
Recent research conducted by the National Institutes of Health, as well as other studies, concludes that fruit flies are proven vectors of Escherichia coli.[1, 2] In these studies, fruit flies harbored E. coli bacteria for up to 7 days after initial contamination, and were proven to progressively contaminate each piece of produce on which they landed for the duration of that same period.
These startling studies bring an entirely new perspective to the large scale national food recalls we’ve seen in the past decade--particularly as it relates to airborne insects. Flies of all types have been long-established vectors of Salmonella, Staphylococcus and Shigella, in addition to E. coli, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to understand fruit flies are very much like their winged brethren.