Question about STIs

Spon Farmer

I Googled this at first out of curiosity but not being able to find the answer is irking me.

So pubic lice is spread by sexual activity (and various other ways) and it isn’t anything to do with personal hygiene. This all the that Google has on how it spreads but I can’t find anything about so how the “carrier” gets it in the first place?

I was talking with a comrade in work last night and he told me about an outbreak of pubic lice among a large portion of the male employees a few years ago. They had all had sexual contact with the same female employee.

This is what led to my curiosity about where an STI comes from. How does the first person in the chain get crabs or any STI? I assume it is not the first case of pubic lice still going strong after all these centuries.

.

Stephen_Maturin

Humans and Gorillas are hosts for the same species of pubic lice

Make of that what you will.

Spon Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120637850#Comment_120637850

Yes I read that but what I’m curious about is how “patient zero” gets it.

Like where I work - let’s say the woman got pubic lice from the first co-worker she had sex with but did he get get it? According to Google, he got it from having sex with someone who had crabs, he/she got it from someone who had crabs, and on and on.

How did the first person in this chain of people get it?

Str8outtaWuhan

The lice on your head are a different species to those around your johnson.

Chicken & egg scenario, which came first. When did the first pubic lice think the warm acidic moist nest of hair down there was a great place to live? Probably from an animal, or maybe the animal got it from a human. Maybe a family of lice living somewhere happened upon this ideal habitation and set of residence in patient 0, and it happened multiple times in multiple places and became a well known life form.

Most men I have had close personal encounters with shave down there these days for the very reason of not providing the desirable nesting grounds, also I believe most women do too. It’s more or less etiquette now for all to keep clean shaven in this region.

Stephen_Maturin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639708#Comment_120639708

Haha what I was getting at was that maybe at some point some pervert had relations with a gorilla and became human patient 0

Capt'n Midnight

By comparing the DNA of human lice from around the world, the researchers estimate in the Aug. 19 Current Biology that body lice diverged from head lice about 72,000 years ago, give or take 42,000 years.

Spon Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639743#Comment_120639743

Yes I know but actually the same question applies to them - when a school has a head lice outbreak, where did the first kid get the live if it also isn’t about hygiene

Spon Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639751#Comment_120639751

By patient zero I didn’t mean the very first human to get it. I meant a person who developed it recently.

So are you saying that those pubic lice in the story can trace their origins to the very first human to get it ?

I think maybe I’m not making myself understood. So I try a similar question.

Young Paul starts a head lice outbreak in school, but where did he get it to begin with?

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120640226#Comment_120640226

From someone else somewhere else. Friend who goes to another school. Random kid at a play centre. Someone beside them on a bus.

Spon Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120639857#Comment_120639857

I got that but the annoyance at this question has killed my sense of humour :P

Spon Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120640174#Comment_120640174

Still doesn’t answer the question though

Tavrin Callas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120640226#Comment_120640226

Every human who has lice (head or pubic) can trace it back to the very first human who contracted it. Theoretically anyway. Doing the actual tracing through the millennia would be a miracle.

Spon Farmer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120640319#Comment_120640319

So a person can’t get head or pubic lice from anything other than another carrier via close contact, shared towels, etc -

It isn’t from going to a place that is damp, etc - these lice have been basically hopping person to person sine the beginning.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120640358#Comment_120640358

Yes.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120640226#Comment_120640226

From someone else of course

Tavrin Callas

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120640358#Comment_120640358

They can't survive without a host (ie, us), so you don't just pick them up in damp weather or walking through grass or anything like that. It's always person to person.