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The Human Louse and Disease
Recent Studies Support the Critical Need for Preparedness and Lice Prevention

"One of the greatest achievements in the war which the medical sciences have waged against epidemic diseases is the discovery that, during times of quiescence in interepidemic periods, the potential agents of disease may smolder in human carriers, in domestic animals - especially rodents, - and in insects." Hans Zinsser - Rats, Lice and History

As the threat of old and new communicable diseases emerge, it is critical to set public health standards that not only encourage, but also enable parents to send their children to school lice and nit free. http://www.headlice.org/downloads/nonitpolicy.htm

The following is a partial list of both classic and recent research studies involving louse-borne diseases. This list continues to grow so check back.

Head Lice and body lice: (pdf)
shared traits invalidate assumptions about evolutionary and medical distinctions
The Louse
1939 PATRICK A. BUXTON, C.M.G., F.R.S.
Two chapters of a true classic.

Zinsser, Lice And History
1990 Deborah Z. Altschuler
Progress, National Pediculosis Association
®

Head lice as vectors of disease
L. Lance Sholdt, PhD
Bartonella quintana in Body Lice and Head Lice from Homeless Persons, San Francisco, California, USA
June 2009
Apes, lice and prehistory
2009 by Robin A Weiss
Emerging and re-emerging rickettsioses: endothelial cell infection and early disease events.
2008 Walker DH, Ismail N.
First Molecular Evidence of Bartonella quintana in Pediculus humanus
capitis (Phthiraptera: Pediculidae), Collected from Nepalese children

2006
“B. quintana DNA sequences were detected in both head and body lice from two children as well as in body lice derived from two other children. These results demonstrate that head lice may also play a role in the transmission of trench fever.”
Toshinori Sasaki; Shree Kanta S. Poudel; Haruhiko Isawa; Toshihiko Hayashi; Naomi Seki; Takashi Tomita; Kyoko Sawabe; Mutsuo Kobayashi
Symbiotic Bacteria Associated with Stomach Discs of Human Lice †
2006, September
The symbiotic bacteria associated with the stomach disc, a large aggregate of bacteriocytes on the ventral side of the midgut, of human body and head lice were characterized. Molecular phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that the symbionts formed a distinct and well-defined clade in the Gammaproteobacteria. >>>
Multispacer typing of Rickettsia prowazekii enabling epidemiological studies of epidemic typhus.
September 2005
"Currently, there is no tool for typing Rickettsia prowazekii, the causative agent of epidemic typhus, currently considered a potential bioterrorism agent, at the strain level."
Zhu Y, Fournier PE, Ogata H, Raoult D.
Excretion of living Borrelia recurrentis in feces of infected human body lice.
2005 June
"We conclude that, similar to epidemic typhus and trench fever, transmission of LBRF may be caused by lice feces."

Houhamdi L, Raoult D.
Drugs used in treatment of pediculosis
2005 March
"This having been said, the two are so closely related that it is naive to believe that head lice will never be shown to spread disease."
Elston DM.
Lice and lice-borne diseases in humans
2005 March
Rickettsia prowazekii, Borrelia recurrentis, Bartonella quintana, Acinetobacter baumannii

Houhamdi L, Parola P, Raoult D.
Ectoparasitism and vector-borne diseases in 930 homeless people in Marseilles
2005 January
"The uncontrolled louse infestation of this population should alert the community to the possibility of severe re-emerging louse-borne infections."
Brouqui P, Stein A, Dupont HT, Gallian P, Badiaga S, Rolain JM, Mege JL, La Scola B, Berbis P, Raoult D.
Louse-borne human pathogen Bartella quintana is a genomic derivative of the zoonotic agent Bartonella henselae
2004 February
Cecilia M. Alsmark * {dagger} {ddagger}, A. Carolin Frank * {dagger}, E. Olof Karlberg * {dagger}, Boris-Antoine Legault *, David H. Ardell * §, Björn Canbäck * ¶, Ann-Sofie Eriksson *, A. Kristina Näslund *, Scott A. Handley * ||, Maxime Huvet *, Bernard La Scola * **, Martin Holmberg {dagger}{dagger} and Siv G. E. Andersson *, {ddagger}{ddagger}
Potential role of head lice, Pediculus humanus capitis, as vectors of Rickettsia prowazekii.
2003 June
"This review of the epidemiology of head louse and body louse infestations, and of LBET, indicates that head lice are potential vectors of R. prowazekii in the field."
Robinson D, Leo N, Prociv P, Barker SC.
Bartonella quintana Bacteremia Among Homeless People
2002
C. Foucault, K. Barrau, P. Brouqui, and D. Raoult
Detection of Bartonella quintana from body lice (Anoplura: Pediculidae) infesting homeless people in Tokyo by molecular technique.
2002 May
Sasaki T, Kobayashi M, Agui N.
Human Pathogens in Body and Head Lice
2002 November
Pierre-Edouard Fournier,* Jean-Bosco Ndihokubwayo,*† Jo Guidran,‡ Patrick J. Kelly,§ and Didier Raoult*
Experimental Model of Human Body Louse Infection Using Green Fluorescent Protein-Expressing Bartonella quintana
2001 March
Pierre-Edouard Fournier,1 Michael F. Minnick,2 Hubert Lepidi,1,3 Eric Salvo,1 and Didier Raoult1,*
Serodiagnosis of Louse-Borne Relapsing Fever with Glycerophophodiester Phosphodiesterase (GlpQ) from Borrelia recurrentis
2000 October

Stephen F. Porcella,1 Sandra J. Raffel,1 Merry E. Schrumpf,1 Martin E. Schriefer,2 David T. Dennis,2 and Tom G. Schwan1,*
The body louse as a vector for reemerging human diseases
1999 October

Raoult D, Roux V.
Body Lice as Tools for Diagnosis and Surveillance of Reemerging Diseases
1999 March
Veronique Roux and Didier Raoult*
Seroprevalence to Bartonella quintana among patients at a community clinic in downtown Seattle
1996 April
Jackson LA, Spach DH, Kippen DA, Sugg NK, Regnery RL, Sayers MH, Stamm WE.
Emergence of Bartonella quintana Infection among Homeless Persons
Emerging Infectious Diseases * Volume 2 * Number 2            April-June 1996
Phthirapterists
http://www.phthiraptera.org/
Bird Flu?? Anybody looking at bird lice?

 

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