Algeria: Lice epidemic grips schoolchildren prompting parents’ headlong rush to pharmacies

Numerous Algerian pharmacies have been taken by storm of late by worried parents seeking desperately the appropriate medical products for their children who have been contaminated by a lice outbreak in many primary and intermediate schools in various parts of the country.

Pharmacists on duty told Echorouk reporters that many parents, taken aback by such a surging lice epidemic in schools, queued up for a long time to purchase medical products in the form of special shampoos aimed at getting rid their hapless offsprings of louse on their heads caught in their schools over the past few weeks due to a sudden and uncontrolled rash of lice.

A spokesperson of the national schoolchildren parents’ association expressed dismay at such a damaging epidemic and pointed an accusing finger at the education ministerial department itself for failing to take adequate and timely measures, through a steady medical follow-up in schools so as to prevent the situation from getting out of control, as it is now, stressing that prevention is always better than a cure.