LAST week after dwelling on the sad and depressing topic of sexual abuse in children, I did promise to talk about something light this week.
And I came across an article about treatment-resitant lice being found in the US. Head lice have long been the unwanted and embarrassing plague of parents and kids.
If you are a parent of a school-going child, chances are that one day, your kid(s) will get lice from a friend with an infestation.
In rural areas, home-made hair relaxers do the trick. What the concotion is  made of I do not know. What I am sure of is that cream enough for head goes for about 50 ngwee at the market.
The outcome is what in local lingo is known as ‘zazoo’. It will turn the hair into a sickly shade of brown, but it will do the trick. For those in urban areas, over the counter treatments in shampoo form sold in many pharmacies are effective.
In some cases, the treatments don’t do a thorough job because parents don’t use them as directed.
If you’re using an over-the-counter treatment, be sure to apply it a second time five to seven days later. Some therapies don’t kill all the eggs the first time, and those survivors will hatch about a week later.
Also, be sure to leave the treatment on long enough.
Sometimes therapies fail because they’re rinsed out too soon. All day or overnight with a shower cap should do the trick. A common reason for failure is that the children don’t like the smell and want to wash it off soon.
If your child still has lice after all that, you may need to see your pediatrician to get a prescription for one of the stronger treatments.
And bad news for parents who rely solely on “nit picking,” or commercially available fine-toothed combs — there’s no evidence suggesting combs are successful.
Hot air therapy may appeal to parents who don’t want to treat their kids with chemicals. But better still, the good old hot comb which one can heat on a stove or brazier kills the lice and nukes the eggs in one stroke. This method is especially effective for parents of kids with medium to long hair. Some people think head lice goes hand-in-hand with poor hygiene habits. The truth is lice moves from one head to another. They do not ‘jump’. As kids play contact games and rub heads and so do the lice spread.
Ultimately, if nothing else works, there’s one last option that is proven to be 100 per cent effective — even if kids (especially girls) generally hate it.
One pediatrician said:
“That’s what I would call ‘destruction of habitat. If you destroy an organism’s habitat, then they are dead meat.”
What he’s suggesting, in plain English, is shaving the child’s head. No hair, no lice.
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