“We've seen a significant increase,” Walker, the owner of North York-based Nitwits, told CP24.com this week. “We're up about 24 per cent over our busiest year.”“We're not quite sure what to attribute it to. There has been a lot more travel for sure,” she said.
Toronto Public Health said although public health units have no mandate to address head lice infestations, as they are not considered a public health hazard, the city has a number of tips for parents and caregivers to help prevent the transmission of head lice. “We've been in business 23 years and people have often come to us with that same complaint, but more so in the last I'd say five to 10 years, it's becoming more prevalent where there's product failures,” she said when asked about reports of product-resistant “super lice.”
Walker said that she too has noticed an increase in strains of lice that appear to be resistant to over-the-counter treatments. “Last summer, a lot of the overnight camps didn't do checks. They've gotten into the COVID protocols. There had been barely any lice the year before. So I think a lot of them got out of that or they just had counsellors doing it,” she added. “So we saw a significant rise in lice coming out of overnight camps last year.”