“Head lice infest millions of school-age children every year, both in developed and developing countries. However, little is known about the number of lice transferred among children during school activities, because direct methods to study this are almost impossible to implement. This issue has been addressed following an indirect method, which consist in collecting data of real infestation from several children groups and using a mathematical model of lice colonies to infer how the infestation observed might have evolved. By determining the events that would most likely lead to infestations as those observed, we find that severe infestations are most likely initiated by a relatively large number of lice transferred at the same moment or within relatively short time spans. In turn, …
Insights About Head Lice Transmission From Field Data and Mathematical ModelingRead More