The flatworm Schistosoma mansoni is a blood fluke parasite that causes schistosomiasis, a debilitating disease that occurs throughout the developing world. Current schistosomiasis control strategies are mainly based on chemotherapy, but many researchers believe that the best long-term strategy to control schistosomiasis is through immunization with an antischistosomiasis vaccine combined with d...

Schistosomiasis has been successfully eliminated in Martinique, a country whose story represents one of the most well documented cases of inadvertent schistosomiasis control resulting from successful, widespread invasion by non-competent competitor snail species. Beginning in the 1950s – prior to widespread advocacy of snail control – many countries used integrated control measures to respond t...

There is an omission in the Acknowledgments section. Please see the corrected Acknowledgments here: We thank Prof. J. Webster, together with Drs. Polydor Ngoy Mutombo, Moussa Sacko and Charlotte Gower, for access to the raw microsatellite data of Kokry-Bozo (Mali), and the Schistosomiasis Collection team at the Natural History Museum in London (SCAN) for providing S.mansoni worms. We are gratef...

BACKGROUND Sub-Saharan Africa harbors the majority of the global burden of malaria and schistosomiasis infections. The co-endemicity of these two tropical diseases has prompted investigation into the mechanisms of coinfection, particularly the competing immunological responses associated with each disease. Epidemiological studies have shown that infection with Schistosoma mansoni is associated ...

BACKGROUND Schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease that affects over 200 million people, can lead to significant morbidity and mortality; distribution of single dose preventative chemotherapy significantly reduces disease burden. Implementation of control programs is dictated by disease prevalence rates, which are determined by costly and labor intensive screening of stool samples. Because ecologi...

S. haematobium was first discovered in Sierra Leone in 1909 [1,2], and S. mansoni was later discovered in 1934 in the north of the country [1]. Recovered snail samples included both Bulinus globosus and Biomphalaria pfeifferi [1]. Peak transmission of schistosomiasis takes place at the beginning of the dry season, when water levels and habitat conditions are most suitable for snail hosts [1]. A...

UNLABELLED INTRODUCTION Risk of schistosomiasis expansion to semi-arid northeastern Brazil under the influence of the Integration Project of the São Francisco River (IPSFR) was assessed. METHODS Stool examinations of schoolchildren, epidemiological investigation, and survey of the local host snail Biomphalaria straminea were performed in five IPSFR municipalities. RESULTS Six of 4,770 examine...

This study compared PCR and Western blot techniques in diagnosis of schistosomiasis mansoni. Forty Swiss albino mice were used, thirty two mice were infected with cercariae of S. mansoni and eight mice were kept uninfected which were used as a control. Blood was obtained from four infected mice weekly beginning from the 1st week to the 8th week post infection. The study found that PCR was posit...