After decrease in rates, a second coming of Hillsdale head lice

Home News After decrease in rates, a second coming of Hillsdale head lice

When freshman Caitlin Nelson first heard about the rise in head lice in Hillsdale County over the past three years, her eyes widened with repulsion.

“That’s disgusting,” Nelson said. “That makes me afraid to get it, because head lice is not fun.”

Cases of head lice in Hillsdale County increased steadily over the last three years after dropping dramatically between 2008 and 2009. From 2009 to 2010, the number of head lice incidences increased by 38 percent. And from 2009 to 2010, cases increased by 25 percent.

“Lice are getting more resistant to medical treatment, so they have increased and gotten stronger, just like certain bacterial infections build up immunities to our antibiotics,” said Leslie Robbins, a communicable disease nurse at the Jackson County Health Department.

She suggests an inexpensive method to rid the scalp of these nuisances: Saturate the head with baby, vegetable, or olive oil for eight hours, wash in Dawn soap, and then comb carefully through the hair with a special lice comb.

Nelson’s reaction is similar to most students’ when they hear about the recent increase of this infestation.

According to the Mayo Clinic and the Center for Disease Control, head lice have nothing to do with the cleanliness of someone’s scalp. Head lice are a human parasite spread through close contact, mostly among small children. The itching starts when lice eggs grow and develop on a person’s scalp.

Head lice are actually not a health hazard. Robbins said pediculosis, or head lice, is not an infection and the only real health hazard it poses is secondary infection. This would occur if an unrelated type of infection got under a person’s fingernail and was transferred to the scalp through scratching the skin open.

The widely-accepted notion that head lice are a major health threat to elementary schools was debunked by the state of Michigan in 2003. It was in this year that the Departments of Health and Education collaborated to create the Michigan Head Lice Manual, which created guidelines for schools to follow in cases of head lice outbreak.

Before 2003, schools sent children home at the first sign of head lice, requiring them to stay home until all signs of lice were completely gone, sometimes taking weeks. Kids would miss school for extensive periods of time just because of an itchy head.

The guidelines reformed school policy so that children with nits unattached to the scalp directly were allowed to return to school without fear of spreading the bug.

College students might remember having head checks in grade school for the tiny creatures, but these are no longer mandated by the state of Michigan.

The guidelines have also aimed to prevent the spread of head lice in the first place, by creating awareness of the danger of sharing hats and combs among children.