BMJ 1995;311:752 (16 September)

Letters

Head lice resistant to pyrethroid insecticides in Britain

EDITOR,--Recent anecdotal reports and one clinical study have suggested that head lice found in parts of Israel and France have acquired resistance to the pyrethroid insecticides permethrin and phenothrin.*RF 1, 2, 3* In Britain most failures of treatment reported to us have been attributable to causes other than resistance, including shorter than expected residual protection after treatment with permethrin. When working in north London in January 1994 we obtained lice and hair samples from children whose families had obtained pyrethroid products from more than one country and used them regularly and recently. In the laboratory the lice lived normally in contact with the treated hairs, but laboratory bred clothing lice, which were susceptible to insecticide, died within two hours. Later batches of head lice from the same source were exposed to filter papers that had been treated with 0.1% (6.3 µg/cm2) or 0.25% (15.75 µg/cm2) permethrin. The table . . . [Full text of this article]


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