Head louse infestation among girls in an orphanage and women in a mental hospital and mass-delousing with bioallethrin (PARA™ aerosol)

1970 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
KS Pai
PeerJ ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. e1368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian F. Burgess ◽  
Elizabeth R. Brunton ◽  
Christine M. Brown

Context.During the late 1990s, insecticide resistance had rendered a number of treatment products ineffective; some companies saw this as an opportunity to develop alternative types of treatment. We investigated the possibility that a surfactant-based lotion containing 10% cocamide diethanolamine (cocamide DEA) was effective to eliminate head louse infestation.Settings and Design.Initialin vitrotesting of the lotion formulation versus laboratory reared body/clothing lice, followed by two randomised, controlled, community-based, assessor blinded, clinical studies.Materials and Methods.Preliminary laboratory tests were performed by exposing lice or louse eggs to the product using a method that mimicked the intended use. Clinical Study 1: Children and adults with confirmed head louse infestation were treated by investigators using a single application of aqueous 10% cocamide DEA lotion applied for 60 min followed by shampooing or a single 1% permethrin creme rinse treatment applied to pre-washed hair for 10 min. Clinical Study 2: Compared two treatment regimens using 10% cocamide DEA lotion that was concentrated by hair drying. A single application left on for 8 h/overnight was compared with two applications 7 days apart of 2 h duration, followed by a shampoo wash.Results.The initial laboratory tests showed a pediculicidal effect for a 60 min application but limited ovicidal effect. A longer application time of 8 h or overnight was found capable of killing all eggs but this differed between batches of test material. Clinical Study 1: Both treatments performed badly with only 3/23 (13%) successful treatments using cocamide DEA and 5/25 (23.8%) using permethrin. Clinical Study 2: The single overnight application of cocamide DEA concentrated by hair drying gave 10/56 (17.9%) successes compared with 19/56 (33.9%) for the 2 h application regimen repeated after 1 week. Intention to treat analysis showed no significant difference (p= 0.0523) between the treatments. Over the two studies, there were 18 adverse events possibly or probably associated with treatment, most of which were increased pruritus after treatment.Conclusions.Cocamide DEA 10% lotion, even when concentrated by hair drying, showed limited activity to eliminate head louse infestation.


Author(s):  
Mojtaba SALIMI ◽  
Abedin SAGHAFIPOUR ◽  
Hadi HAMIDI PARSA ◽  
Majid KHOSRAVI

Background: The head louse infestation is a public health issue in the world especially, affecting most people who live in camps, school-aged children and their families. Head lice treatment has economic ramifications that often under calculated. The aim of this study was evaluation of economic burden associated with head louse infestation in Iran. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, 500,002 infestations were diagnosed among suspected head lice infested people who referred to health care system in all provinces of Iran during 2017. Direct and indirect costs related to paid by patients and government systems were extracted by referring to accounting documents and interviews with patients and experts and were recorded in researcher-made forms. Microsoft Excel 2010 software was used for economic burden calculation. Results: The incidence rate of head lice infestation in Iran was 500,002/79,926,270 (625.5 per 100,000 populations). Economic burden of head lice in the country was calculated at 5,790,143$. Direct and indirect costs, governmental cost, out of pocket and total costs of head lice were included 3.14$, 2.84$, 5.98$, 5.60$ and 11.58$ per case respectively. Conclusion: The direct and indirect costs associated with treatment of infestations were relatively high. Therefore, the creation of medical facilities such as availability of diagnostic and treatment strategies can be effective in the control of infestation. The adoption of infestation prevention methods, such as health education to people at risk of infestation, reduces the incidence of head lice and imposition of related treatment costs on governmental health care system and head lice cases.


2011 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seobo Sim ◽  
Won-Ja Lee ◽  
Jae-Ran Yu ◽  
In Yong Lee ◽  
Seung Hyun Lee ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian F Burgess ◽  
Christine M Brown ◽  
Nazma A Burgess ◽  
Judith Kaufman

Background: Many families find regular checking of children’s heads for head louse infestation too onerous and would prefer to be able to prevent infestation by use of a topical application that deters lice from infesting the head. Identification in the laboratory of a repellent activity for piperonal provided the basis for developing a spray product to repel lice. Methods: A proof of principle field study in Dhaka, Bangladesh, compared the effect of using 2% piperonal spray with that of a placebo in 105 children and adults from three communities with infestation levels close to 100%. All participants were treated for infestation and subsequent incidence of reinfestation monitored daily by investigators. A second randomised, controlled, double blind, study in North London, UK, evaluated the effect of the product in normal use. One hundred and sixty-three children from schools with a high level (20-25%) of infestation were treated and confirmed louse free and randomly divided between 2% piperonal, a placebo spray, and a control group for up to 22 weeks. Parents applied the spray and monitored for infestation. Regular investigator visits confirmed the parental monitoring and replenished supplies of spray. Results: In Dhaka, over 18 days there were only 4 infestations in the piperonal group and 8 in the placebo group. This difference was not significant (p = 0.312). In North London, there were 41 cases of infestation over the course of the study. Analysis of time to first infestation showed a non-significant (p = 0.4368) trend in favour of piperonal. Conclusion: Routine use of 2% piperonal spray in communities with a high prevalence of head louse infestation may provide some protection from infestation. However, the difference between use of the product and no active intervention was sufficiently small that regular checking for presence of lice is likely to be a more practical and cost effective approach to prevention of infestation.


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