HEAD LICE - FACTS
AND FICTION
Pediculus humanus - louse, a parasitic insect
infecting the human hair and skin and transmitting various diseases
(head louse, body louse)
Nit - the egg or young form of a louse or
other parasitic insect, esp. of human head lice or body lice (The Concise
Oxford Dictionary)
ABOUT HEAD LICE
- Head lice are usually small 6-legged insects, which can vary in
colour from grey to brown. Nits are tiny oval shape light colour specs,
which are glued to individual strands of hair
- Nits are usually close to the scalp where it is warm but they can
be found anywhere on hair
- To check if an egg is dead, squeeze it between the two thumb finger nails. If you can hear a click,
it means that the nit was alive (but not any more!) and the person has to be treated
- Head lice feed on blood sucked from the human scalp
- Head lice are not necessarily tiny creatures - some of them are
big enough to be easily spotted crawling on hair. They used to be approximately 1mm
long but now some reach 3mm.
- Lice can live up to 4 weeks. You need a male and a female to mate to lay eggs
- An adult louse can lay up to 10 eggs a day
- It takes about 7 days for an egg to hatch
- There are approx. 200 species of human lice and some are getting bigger
and tougher due to the overload of chemicals in various treatments. They apparently do not cross-breed
- Lice can live on other parts of the body such as pubic area or
arm pits or even eyebrows
- If you have head lice it is very likely that your scalp will itch. This is due to (1)
the irritation caused by the substance injected into the skin by lice when they suck blood
and (2) by the movement of insects crawling in hair
- Some people can itch for weeks even though they are not infested any more
- Head lice can survive outside a human body for up to 48 hours and
no prolonged contact is necessary to get infested
- You can catch head lice through direct head to head contact or
contact with places or objects, which are infested (hats, hair brushes,
soft toys, wam clothing, bedding). They can't jump or fly but they
move very fast
- You cannot catch head lice from animals as they do not get them.
They get fleas
- There is no substance known to humans which will give 100% protection against head lice
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