UNH Students Treated for Scabies

By Abram Katz

The innocent-looking curb- side couch seemed ideal for lounging at the University of New Haven. So some students dragged it in, unaware of the family already living in the folds and seams of the abandoned furniture. The sofa apparently was loaded with tiny mites that live on humans, mating, laying eggs, and crawling just under the skin.

If this doesn’t sound pleasant, it’s not.

Sarcoptes scabiei create an infuriatingly itchy condition that came to be called scabies.

It’s been around forever — Aristotle was familiar with the malady — and about 300 million people worldwide claw and scratch at the tunneling arthropods at any given time, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention division of parasitic diseases.

Julie Winkel, spokeswoman for UNH said, about half a dozen students, some off campus, found themselves colonized by mites on Monday.

Rumors were scuttling through the student body this week, including concern that everyone at the university was infected. Not so.

“Don’t panic!” the UNH health services said in an e-mail to students.

The creatures are just barely visible and carve through the top layer of skin with the help of skin-dissolving enzymes, creating S- shaped burrows.

Occasionally the mites appear as little moving white spots.

These would be female mites looking for a good place to deposit eggs, as the smaller males die soon after mating.

The itch is an allergic response to mite droppings, mite moults, moulting fluid, and mite saliva. Usually the scabies afflicted harbor 15 to 20 females at a time.

That’s the end of it, unless the scabies is left untreated, or the mites attack people with weakened immune systems, or immobilized geriatric patients. In these cases the patient’s skin may become encrusted, with soft underlying skin honeycombed with mite tunnels.

This condition is called “Norwegian” or “crusted” scabies and signifies the presence of thousands or millions of female mites.

The good news is that this condition is hardly itchy. However, that’s probably because the patient has a severely depleted immune response.

The students were given prescription insecticide-containing lotion, and an exterminator was summoned to make sure no mites remain, Winkel said.

Students were told to apply the lotion for 10 to 12 hours and then shower it off in the morning. A second treatment may be required.

UNH health services apparently sent e-mail to students informing them of the scabies, offering treatment, and calming frayed nerves.

“Within the past two days we have had several students diagnosed with scabies. … The students involved at this point all have been in contact with each other through their association with friends in one of the resident halls,” the e-mail read. “Many others have called or stopped into our office with concerns about this condition.”

Scabies affects all social and economic groups equally and is not the result of poor hygiene.

It is spread by close contact and typically appears in hospitals, institutions, child-care facilities and nursing homes. It also is spread easily between sex partners.

It’s usually just an itch in and around the webbing between the fingers; the skin folds on the wrist, elbow, or knee; or other areas.

At night, itchiness spreads over the entire body, according to experts at the CDC.

However, repeating rasping can cause secondary bacterial infections, often by bacterium such as Staphylococcus aureus.

No one knows exactly what happened to the couch, but it’s now off campus.

Way off campus.

(c) 2007 New Haven Register. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.