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Do drowning and anoxia kill head lice?

Chemical, physical, and mechanical methods are used to control human lice. Attempts have been made to eradicate head lice Pediculus humanus capitis by hot air, soaking in various fluids or asphyxiation using occlusive treatments. In this study, we assessed the maximum time that head lice can survive...

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Autores principales: Candy, Kerdalidec, Brun, Sophie, Nicolas, Patrick, Durand, Rémy, Charrel, Remi N., Izri, Arezki
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: EDP Sciences 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5844234/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29521258
http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/parasite/2018015
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author Candy, Kerdalidec
Brun, Sophie
Nicolas, Patrick
Durand, Rémy
Charrel, Remi N.
Izri, Arezki
author_facet Candy, Kerdalidec
Brun, Sophie
Nicolas, Patrick
Durand, Rémy
Charrel, Remi N.
Izri, Arezki
author_sort Candy, Kerdalidec
collection PubMed
description Chemical, physical, and mechanical methods are used to control human lice. Attempts have been made to eradicate head lice Pediculus humanus capitis by hot air, soaking in various fluids or asphyxiation using occlusive treatments. In this study, we assessed the maximum time that head lice can survive anoxia (oxygen deprivation) and their ability to survive prolonged water immersion. We also observed the ingress of fluids across louse tracheae and spiracle characteristics contrasting with those described in the literature. We showed that 100% of lice can withstand 8 h of anoxia and 12.2% survived 14 h of anoxia; survival was 48.9% in the untreated control group at 14 h. However, all lice had died following 16 h of anoxia. In contrast, the survival rate of water-immersed lice was significantly higher when compared with non-immersed lice after 6 h (100% vs. 76.6%, p = 0.0037), and 24 h (50.9% vs. 15.9%, p = 0.0003). Although water-immersed lice did not close their spiracles, water did not penetrate into the respiratory system. In contrast, immersion in colored dimeticone/cyclomethicone or colored ethanol resulted in penetration through the spiracles and spreading to the entire respiratory system within 30 min, leading to death in 100% of the lice.
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spelling pubmed-58442342018-03-14 Do drowning and anoxia kill head lice? Candy, Kerdalidec Brun, Sophie Nicolas, Patrick Durand, Rémy Charrel, Remi N. Izri, Arezki Parasite Research Article Chemical, physical, and mechanical methods are used to control human lice. Attempts have been made to eradicate head lice Pediculus humanus capitis by hot air, soaking in various fluids or asphyxiation using occlusive treatments. In this study, we assessed the maximum time that head lice can survive anoxia (oxygen deprivation) and their ability to survive prolonged water immersion. We also observed the ingress of fluids across louse tracheae and spiracle characteristics contrasting with those described in the literature. We showed that 100% of lice can withstand 8 h of anoxia and 12.2% survived 14 h of anoxia; survival was 48.9% in the untreated control group at 14 h. However, all lice had died following 16 h of anoxia. In contrast, the survival rate of water-immersed lice was significantly higher when compared with non-immersed lice after 6 h (100% vs. 76.6%, p = 0.0037), and 24 h (50.9% vs. 15.9%, p = 0.0003). Although water-immersed lice did not close their spiracles, water did not penetrate into the respiratory system. In contrast, immersion in colored dimeticone/cyclomethicone or colored ethanol resulted in penetration through the spiracles and spreading to the entire respiratory system within 30 min, leading to death in 100% of the lice. EDP Sciences 2018-03-09 /pmc/articles/PMC5844234/ /pubmed/29521258 http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/parasite/2018015 Text en © K. Candy et al., published by EDP Sciences, 2018 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Candy, Kerdalidec
Brun, Sophie
Nicolas, Patrick
Durand, Rémy
Charrel, Remi N.
Izri, Arezki
Do drowning and anoxia kill head lice?
title Do drowning and anoxia kill head lice?
title_full Do drowning and anoxia kill head lice?
title_fullStr Do drowning and anoxia kill head lice?
title_full_unstemmed Do drowning and anoxia kill head lice?
title_short Do drowning and anoxia kill head lice?
title_sort do drowning and anoxia kill head lice?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5844234/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29521258
http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/parasite/2018015
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