Very hard to lick super lice

A NEW breed of “super lice” is starting to emerge, forcing parents to go to extreme lengths to try to remove them from their kids’ hair.

Australian parents are forking out hundreds of dollars to kill the new breed of head lice, which have become resistant to popular over-the-counter products.

Michael Lawless, of Lice Clinics Australia, likened super lice to antibiotic resistance and said they were much harder to kill than other species.

He said the more people used insecticides the more prevalent this type of issue would become.

Mr Lawless said more parents were using the company’s specialised machine, which dehydrates and kills these type of head lice.

“They’re panicked it’s going to spread through the house,” he said. “They will pay for a professional service to get the job done.”

Popular chemical treatments such as Malathion, Permethrin and Pyrethrin don’t work as well as they used to.

While visiting a specialist clinic that deals with head lice is effective, the costs can start to build up. The cheapest option is conditioner and a comb to manually remove the lice.

Other research suggests essential oils, such as tea-tree oil, work well in killing the bugs.

While the state Education Department isn’t aware of any super lice cases at its schools, campuses are on alert.

Parents are urged to treat their children for any creepy crawlies before term three begins on July 15.

Students with head lice can be excluded from school until the day after beginning to treat live critters. But lice is not a notifiable health condition.