WHO During the past decade there have been major efforts to plan, implement, and sustain measures for reducing the burden of human disease that accompanies helminth infections. Further impetus was provided at the Fifty-fourth World Health Assembly, when WHO Member States were urged to ensure access to essential anthelminthic drugs in health services located where the parasites – schistosomes, r...

The objective of this review is to clarify aspects of immunological and biochemical adaptations of schistosomes to their intermediate and final mammalian hosts. Adaptations to the mammalian hosts are traced in relation to cercarial penetration of mammalian skin, glucose transport and metabolism. The unusual ability of schistosome surface membrane to escape immune recognition and damage are revi...

Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) caused by parasitic trematodes belonging to the Schistosoma genus. The mainstay of schistosomiasis control delivery single dose praziquantel (PZQ) through mass drug administration (MDA) programs. These programs have been successful in reducing prevalence and intensity infections. Due success MDA programs, has recently targeted for eliminatio...

Twelve tundra swans, Cygnus columbianus (Ord), from Nevada and one from New Mexico were collected and examined for schistosomes. Mature worms, determined as Allobilharzia visceralis, were found in 92% of the swans, in the inferior mesenteric vein of the large intestine and its branches. In 12 cases, there was endophlebitis of the inferior mesenteric vein. The morphology of the worms is consiste...

INTODUCF1ON SCHISTOSOMES that infect domestic animals are of great economic importance, and may even cause death in cattle and sheep.' These parasites may also at times infest man, the most important of the several species being Schistosoma haematobium and Schistosoma mansoni. They are the subject of the present discussion. Both these parasites have a complicated, but similar, life cycle. Matur...

Schistosomiasis is the most important helminthic disease of humanity in terms of morbidity and mortality. Facile manipulation of schistosomes using lentiviruses would enable advances in functional genomics in these and related neglected tropical diseases pathogens including tapeworms, and including their non-dividing cells. Such approaches have hitherto been unavailable. Blood stream forms of t...

Schistosomes are blood-dwelling trematodes with global impact on human and animal health. Because medical treatment is currently based on a single drug, praziquantel, there is urgent need for the development of alternative control strategies. The Schistosoma mansoni genome project provides a platform to study and connect the genetic repertoire of schistosomes to specific biological functions es...