A heads up on licking lice problem

HANOVER: Much to the annoyance of many parents, head lice can be particularly active in the late summer and early autumn months, so it is well to be on the alert.

Teachers at nursery schools and those for older children are usually the bearers of bad news, and many a parent becomes well acquainted with the tiny, wingless parasitic insect, which lives among human hairs and feeds on tiny amounts of blood drawn from the scalp.

Head lice are contagious, and their bites will inflame your child's scalp to the point where it can become unbearably itchy.

Anyone who gets head lice will want to get rid of them immediately. And that is easy, provided that prompt action is taken. Head lice are not choosy about their victims, and the problem is not related either to how often a child's hair is washed or the general level of hygiene at home.

Lice infestation is not just irritating but embarrassing as well. It can lead to a lot of tears, so it is important for children to realize that they have done nothing wrong by contracting them and that they are in no way dirty.

"Unfortunately, this is not generally realized, and that is why many people just keep quiet about lice infestation", says Michael Forssbohm, head of the department for infection protection at the health department in the German city of Wiesbaden. This leads to even more outbreaks, he points out.

"Children and teenagers are the most prone to catching head lice, as they have close physical contact with each other at school, during sports and while playing at home with their friends," says Jan Krueger, chairman of the German Pediculosis Society in Hanover.

Persistent scratching is not a reliable early warning sign, and it depends on how sensitive a child's skin is to the lice or their tiny eggs, which are called nits. It can sometimes take weeks for kids with lice or nits to start scratching.

This makes it all the more important to examine the child's hair as soon as word is given that another pupil or friend has contracted head lice.

The best way to do this is to wet the hair in the usual way before parting the child's hair into small sections and checking for lice and nits on the scalp, behind the ears and around the nape of the neck.

Special fine combs can be bought at drugstores or in a chemist's shop. The comb should be emptied on a light-colored towel, so that the pale yellow nits and brownish lice can be easily identified.

Combing out the child's hair is both the first way of finding out whether a child has nits and the first step towards getting rid of them.

To guard against further infection, it is as well to wash all combs and brushes which have come into contact with the lice in a solution of hot, soapy water. Bed linen, towels, pyjamas, stuffed animals and plush toys used by anyone who is or was infested should be washed in very hot water.

DPA

(China Daily 10/10/2007 page19)