Several cases of scabies have been detected on the Costa Tropical in recent days, specifically in Motril and Almuñécar, it has been reported. 

The health authorities have confirmed this, noting that while the exact number of infections is unconfirmed, they are isolated and under control.

The health authorities state these occurrences happen every summer everywhere, but they do not cause an alarm or epidemic, and therefore are calling for calm.

Scabies is not a rare disease in our area as anyone can get it. Outbreaks mostly happen in nursing homes, family settings, and daycares, and less often in prisons, centros de salud, and hospitals.

It is caused by a parasite, the Sarcoptes scabiei; an eight-legged arthropod (mite) which causes annoying itching. As for how it spreads, it is done through direct, prolonged contact with an infected person, or indirectly via contaminated clothing, towels, and bedding.

Symptoms take four to six weeks to appear on a first infection, or 24 hours to four days in later infestations.

So, how do you know that you’ve got scabies. Firstly everybody will keep well clear of you and cross themselves if they come across you on the street.

Actually when it itches the most is at night with early stages showing a line of red dots (do not cut along this line), later stages may show crusts or scales anywhere on the body and advanced stages will make your elbows fall off and run across the room. OK, I was not being entirely accurate on that last point.

Your doctor can confirm that you’ve got the dreaded lurgy by identifying mites, eggs, or feces under a microscope, using a skin scraping sample.

As for treatment, you’ll need a butterfly net to recapture your lost elbows and a 5% topical permethrin cream should be applied over the whole body from the neck down to the soles of the feet, preferably at night. Kinky!

Then wait 10 to 15 minutes before dressing, leave it on for at least eight hours, and rinse off in the shower. Repeat after one or two weeks.

The blighters love hiding out between your toes, fingers palms, soles of you feet, armpits, under breasts, genitals, and buttocks, so apply liberally.

In children and the elderly, it can spread to the scalp and face, requiring careful application away from eyes and mouth. Severe cases may use oral ivermectin or you could consider being taken outside and shot, as a kindness.

Just writing this is making me itch!

(News: Almunecar/Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)

keywords: Scabbies on the Coast, Mites, Itching, Permethrin, Contagious

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