An itching business
A battle cry is being sounded in primary schools nationwide and parents are being encouraged to fight a war against an enemy that’s the size of a sesame seed, but remains, despite all our efforts, a huge great nuisance: lice, otherwise known as nits.
This is a heroic attempt to rid our young children of this itchy parasite. The problem is widespread – ask any primary school teacher –because reservoirs of infestations go undetected. Lice have also developed immunity to many conventional pesticide treatments.
It’s hard to quantify the scale of the epidemic – sales of pesticide treatments are our best indication. They leapt from a market worth £14million in 1995 to £29 million in 1998. There’s a lot of scratching going on out there, particularly amongst children between the ages of four and eleven.
What are lice?
The head louse or, to give it its grand name, Pediculus capitis, is a parasite that lives on human blood and is found in scalp hair. They are caught by close head-to-head contact with an affected person and, contrary to popular belief, they do not leap from person to person. Nor do they prefer dirty hair. In fact, clean locks are more to their taste.
Here’s the nitty-gritty: they have six legs and hold onto hair with their claws. Their eggs, which are known as nits, are firmly glued to the hair shaft, often several along one hair, which is why in the past they were known as ‘pearls of poverty’. Today, however, the social stigma attached to nits is fast disappearing. Anyone can get them, no matter what their background.
Fully grown, a louse is about the size of a matchstick head and is visible to the naked eye. They can cause itching and are unpleasant, but are not generally harmful.
How do you know if your child has them?
The nits, or eggs, are often the most visible sign of infestation. You can find them on the hair close to the scalp, especially around the nape of the neck and behind the ears. Your child may start itching, but not always. Usually, there are only ten lice or less on the head in the initial stages, so the onset of itching is delayed. Parting dry hair to look for lice is not reliable because they often scamper away. So always wet comb if you want to find out whether or not a scalp has been invaded.
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