A Kiwi mum has created what is believed to be a world-first nits treatment as the school year begins.
Kate Ricketts has created a biofluorescent powder that causes nit eggs to glow under UV light.
This makes them easier to spot and remove.
“My kids were getting it repeatedly,” she said.
“I’d treat them with the shampoo that was smelly, and they’d fight me and they didn’t want to do it, and then I was spending all the bottles of it and then it would come back 2 weeks later because I’d obviously missed an egg or hadn’t caught everything.”
She told 1News the idea came from her time as a veterinary nurse.
“We used to use UV light to confirm the presence of ringworm, because it fluoresces under light, and then I had read an article that suggested insect exoskeletons fluoresce under UV light.”
Head lice are a global public health problem, with scratching potentially leading to secondary bacterial infections.
An estimated one in three schoolkids will get headlice which then can be transmitted to siblings and parents.
The product won Ricketts a sustainable development award at the United Nations.
Funding from the University of Auckland means that these kits will be in production for domestic and international markets.
