TY - JOUR AU - Barker, Stephen AU - Barker, Dayana T1 - Killing Clothes Lice by Holding Infested Clothes Away from Hosts for 10 Days to Control Louseborne Relapsing Fever, Bahir Dah, Ethiopia T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2019 VL - 25 IS - 2 SP - 304 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Louseborne relapsing fever (LBRF) was once a cosmopolitan disease, but it now occurs only in the Horn of Africa. Recent cases in refugees to Europe made LBRF topical again. Crowded boarding houses and church dwellings in Ethiopia are analogous to the crowded air-raid shelters of World War II. Thus, we might learn from experiments the London School of Tropical Hygiene and Medicine conducted during World War II. When the vector of Borrelia recurrentis (Pediculus humanus lice) was held away from the host for 10 days, 100% of nymphal and adult lice starved to death and 100% of eggs did not hatch. We hypothesize that holding infested clothes away from hosts in plastic shopping bags will kill enough lice to control LBRF in Ethiopia. Owning 2 sets of clothes might be useful; 1 set might be held in a plastic shopping bag for 10 days to kill lice and their eggs. KW - Phthiraptera KW - Pediculus humanus KW - louseborne relapsing fever KW - lice KW - clothes lice KW - infested clothes KW - barrels KW - Borrelia recurrentis KW - bacteria KW - zoonoses KW - vector-borne infections KW - London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine KW - World War I KW - World War II KW - Ethiopia DO - 10.3201/eid2502.181226 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/25/2/18-1226_article ER - End of Reference