Head Lice , A Concern

SAM thanks Dr Asad Kazim, a Dermatologist, for his illuminating letter in Dawn Sept 6. SAM also thanks American Academy of Pediatrics for their guidelines on Head Lice. SAM has dutifully made a note to attack this alarming menace.A copy of the letter follows,

A BUSY father at work receives a message from his daughter’s school to come and fetch her immediately. He panics and calls the school management to hear something very unexpected. “We found head lice in your daughter’s hair. You must come and collect her. Your daughter cannot return to school until they are completely gone.” 

The father is first relieved that it wasn’t a terrorist attack or an accident his daughter had met with. Then he assures the management that he would use the best anti-lice treatment to rid her of the lice but he would not be able to fetch her at that time: nine o’clock in the morning. The school management insists that she be taken home right there and then.

Being a dermatologist, I often see parents angry over schools’ unsympathetic behaviour and zero tolerance for head lice.

Why is that? Do head lice spread disease? Do they cause injury? Do they fly about the room? Do the nits somehow pass from child to child like live bugs? Why are children being excluded from school merely for having a few louse eggs stuck to their hair shafts?

The American Academy of Paediatrics states that children with head lice and nits should not be excluded from school.

Besides, screening for head lice should be done on Fridays so that two-day holidays are utilised for anti-lice treatment.

Follow-up for treatment success should be based on no lice policy instead of no nit policy since nits are empty egg shells and do not represent treatment failure.