Around 70 school heads have asked the Education Health Services to send a nurse to screen students for head lice since the start of the scholastic year, The Sunday Times has learnt, as concerns mount over the manpower available to deal with the problem effectively.

Reports of pupils affected with head lice have been persistent and worrying. In the past week, the Malta Union of Teachers received several calls from teachers complaining about the problem, union president John Bencini said while a hairdresser said around half the children he is seeing to at the moment were infested with either lice or nits.

"There is an infestation in both state and private schools, especially among children with long hair," the hairdresser said, adding that he has seen up to three cases in a given week.

"It is very worrying. Sometimes I even see teachers who are not aware they have nits in their hair."

Although the problem is usually associated with young children, another hairdresser said that even secondary school pupils have been affected.

The MUT is also concerned about the situation, and although Education Health Services unit head Anthony Xuereb said these requests were usually met within a few days, Mr Bencini said this was long enough for other children to be affected. He explained that head teachers no longer took it upon themselves to inform the parents unless a nurse had confirmed the presence of lice, recalling that a facilitator was once attacked by a parent simply for pointing out that a child had lice.

"Although the majority of parents respond positively and take action to rid their children of lice, others don't," he said.

Mr Bencini said that the most-used practice was for teachers who notice lice to inform the head of school, who in turn notifies the Education Health Services.

However, there are not enough nurses to deal with the situation when there is an outbreak in more than a few schools at once.

Dr Xuereb said head lice screening was currently being carried out by a group of three health care workers, while a call for applications to employ a further two was in the pipeline. He said that a group of nurses from the School Health Services of the Primary Health Care Division also took part.

He said while screening is carried out at the request of the school head, routine screening also takes place after consent is given by the parents. He also pointed out that screening was not a solution and educating parents was important to encourage the correct use of the proper products.

According to the British Medical Journal, head lice can move from one person to another if their hair touches for at least 30 seconds. Chemical treatments for head lice work well although the lice are becoming resistant to them.

Although the treatments are considered safe, they should not be used unless it is certain that a person has lice. It is a misconception that people who have lice are dirty since lice cannot tell the difference between clean and dirty hair.