“Recently, head lice belonging to different mitochondrial clades were found to carry the DNA of several bacterial body louse-borne pathogens, such as B. quintana, B. recurrentis, Acinetobacter species and Y. pestis in natural settings [14,16,20,33±38]. Experimental studies have also demonstrated that head lice may also act as a vector of louse-borne diseases”
PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2018 Apr 17.
See full article: “Body lice of homeless people reveal the presence of several emerging bacterial pathogens in northern Algeria.”