Scabies transmission
A person with scabies is contagious for at least a month before they are diagnosed. This means that person could have passed scabies to anyone at that time with whom they had close contact. Someone who sleeps in the same room with a person with scabies has a high possibility of having scabies as well although they show no symptoms and so will require treatment as well as the initially infected person.The symptoms are caused by an allergic reaction that the body develops over time to the mites and their by-products under the skin, thus the 4-6 week "incubation" period.
There are usually relatively few mites on a normal, healthy person--about 11 females in burrows. Scabies are very very tiny although sometimes they are visible as a pinpoint of white, with three or four pairs of dark legs.
The females burrow into the skin and lay eggs there. Males roam on top of the skin however can burrow and do, but both males and females surface at times especially at night.
Does washing cure scabies?
They cannot be washed off or scratched off, and although the itch is severe it is wise not to scratch as an open wound will encourage infection.Also, sometimes humans create antibodies to the scabies mites which do kill some of them.
