Head Lice Procedures

ASM’s head lice procedures are based on the recommendations provided by the Spanish Ministry of Health through Consejeria de Sanidad de la Comunidad de Madrid and the following American organizations: Center for Disease Control (CDC), American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), National Association of School Nurses (NASN).

The above-mentioned organizations state the following:

Students diagnosed with live head lice do not need to be sent home early from school; they can go home at the end of the day, be treated, and return to class after appropriate treatment has begun. Nits may persist after treatment, but successful treatment should kill crawling lice.

Head Lice can be a nuisance, but they have not been shown to spread disease; however, a secondary bacterial infection of the skin resulting from scratching can occur with any lice infestation.

The most common way to get head lice is by head-to-head contact with a person who already has head lice. Such contact can be common among children during play at school, home, sports activities, playgrounds, or camps.

Uncommonly, the transmission may occur by:

Wearing clothing, such as hats, scarves, coats, sports uniforms, or hair ribbons worn by an infected person.

Using infested comb, brushes, or towels.

Lying on a bed, couch, pillow, carpet, or stuffed animal that has recently been in contact with an infected person.

Massive-systematic screenings do not decrease the number of cases of head lice.

All household members and other close contacts should be checked; those persons with evidence of an active infestation should be treated.

ASM school procedures when dealing with head lice include the following steps:

When nits are discovered, the school nurses should contact the parents to let them know about the presence of nits and to provide them with specific information about treatment and prevention.

The student with nits must receive the treatment before returning to school.

The school nurses will monitor the child with head lice for a period of one week and communicate with the parents in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment.

The school nurses will check siblings and close friends of the child infested with head lice.

In case of a second case of head lice in a grade level, the school nurses will do a random check of students in that grade level to determine the extent of the infestation. Parents will be contacted to inform them of the results of this monitoring.