Head Lice (Pediculosis Capitis)

Treatment of head lice

1. Wash the hair carefully with normal shampoo, do not use a conditioner, do not dry the hair.

2. Apply a "louse shampoo" containing Permethrin carefully on the full scalp, leave it in place for 10 minutes and wash it out carefully under running water.

3. Do not apply Permethrin around the eyes or in the eye brows.

4. Do not use any other substances than Permethrin as they are often very toxic. This includes "natural" remedies.

5. Comb the wet hair under good light carefully with a special nit comb once daily for 1 week.

6. Repeat the chemical treatment with Permethrin after 1 week.

Please store the Permethrin somewhere where the children cannot access it. Severe intoxications with Permethrin or other "louse shampoos" do occur regularly world wide!

Olive oil may be helpful for combing out the nits, but it is unnecessary messy and unpleasant for the child

Preventing the spread of the infection

It is absolutely enough to vacuum clean all floors, beds and stuffed animals, change bed linens and wash the old ones carefully.

Spraying the house is unnecessary.

Other family members should be checked for lice but no preventive treatment of uninfected family members should be performed.

Do not shave the child's head

This is unnecessary stigmatization of children and usually lice can be treated without traumatizing the child.

Head lice do not correlate with personal hygiene or living conditions

The stigma still associated with head lice stems from times where even medical science was influenced by ideologies and was used to single out certain minorities as culprits. Do not be ashamed if your child should be affected; such things just happen to school children all around the world in all social classes.

If head lice are detected children only need to stay away from school until Permethrin was applied once

All other isolation protocols are excessive.

All around the world head lice are a problem for schools and kindergartens. So it is inevitable that once or twice a year a number of school children with head lice are found in the international schools in Tashkent. Generally head lice are a harmless nuisance that is easily treated with anti-louse shampoo.

Head Lice do not transmit infectious diseases

Head lice do not transmit infectious diseases and there is no need to be concerned that head lice could put your child at risk for more serious diseases.