Chapter 1: Clinical Overview
Head lice are spread through direct contact with an infested person's hair.
They cannot jump or fly, but they can crawl from one head to another. Head lice can also be spread through sharing personal items such as combs, brushes, hats, and headphones.
Lice need warmth and blood to survive and cannot survive for more than 2 days away from a human scalp. This means that they do not live for long on furniture, hats, bedding, carpet or anywhere else in the environment.
They do not live on animals.
Lice hatch from the nits in 6-10 days, and then begin breeding within 18 days and can lay up to 10 eggs a day. They die after, at most, 35 days from hatching.
