How can you protect yourself and others from pubic lice?

Lots of people shave or otherwise remove their pubic and armpit hair and hair on other parts of the body like the legs and chest for aesthetic reasons. That lowers the risk of infestation because the pubic lice have less chance to cling on. But even shaving off all of your pubic hair doesn't provide one hundred percent protection because pubic lice can survive in hair on other parts of the body – even on eyebrows and eyelashes.

It isn't necessary to disinfect flat surfaces or objects like toilet seats that the lice can't cling on, or to disinfect entire rooms.

Condoms do protect from other sexually transmitted infections. But they can’t prevent pubic lice from spreading.

To make sure you don't pass the parasites on to other people, it is important not to have sex until you are sure that treatment has got rid of all of the pubic lice.

But you can already pass on pubic lice before you even notice them. That’s why it is important to tell everyone you had sex with in the three months before the diagnosis. They can then examine themselves and get treatment if needed.

Steady sexual partners are usually treated at the same time so that the pubic lice are not passed back and forth.

Infection through textiles is rare, but possible, especially through bedding, towels and clothes. The lice can cling on to the fibers in the laundry. They can only survive for about 1 to 2 days without direct contact to a human body, but their eggs (nits) can survive for a longer time.

If you use the same bedding after treatment as you were using before, wear clothes you'd already worn, or use the same bath towel, lice or nits that have survived might make it back onto your body. That is also true for other people who use those textiles.

Washing laundry at 60 degrees Celsius gets rid of the parasites. Another option, such as for sensitive textiles, is to seal them in a plastic bag for two weeks and wait for the pubic lice and nits to die.