DNA studies of Egyptian mummies shows evidence of the existence of Schistosomiasis about 5000 years ago. Schistosomiasis is increasing in prevalence, affecting nearly 10% of the world’s population and ranking second only to malaria as a cause of morbidity & mortality.
Schistosoma haematobium are... found in tropical Africa & part of southwest Asia.
Schistosoma mansoni are found in tropical Africa, part of southwest Asia, south America & Caribbean islands.
Schistosoma japonicum are found in parts of Japan, China, Philippines, India & part of southeast Asia.
Blood flukes are known as schistosomes because of the "split body" on the ventral side of the male, in which the female is held during insemination and egg laying.
Man is the definite host harbouring adult parasites, and fresh water snails are intermediate hosts.
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Schistosomiasis is the medical term for Bilharzia.
Bilharzia is an acute and chronic disease caused by schistosome parasitic worms.
You cannot see the parasite when it enters your body.
The worms can stay in the body from 5 to 30 years.
At least 261 million people required.
Schistosomiasis, also known as Bilharzia, is an infection caused by a parasitic worm that lives in fresh water in subtropical and tropical regions. Schistosomiasis is second only to malaria as the most devastating parasitic disease. The parasites that cause schistosomiasis live in certain types of f...reshwater snails. The infectious form, known as cercariae, emerge from the snail and then contaminate the water. People become infected when their skin comes into contact with the contaminated freshwater. Most human infections are caused by Schistosoma mansoni, Schistosoma haematobium, or Schistosoma japonicum.
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Schistosomiases are acute or chronic visceral parasitic diseases due to 5 species of trematodes (schistosomes). The three main species infecting humans are Schistosoma haematobium, Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosoma japonicum. Schistosoma mekongi and Schistosoma intercalatum have a more limited dis...tribution.
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Female Genital Schistosomiasis (FGS) is a gynaecological disease caused by Schistosoma haematobium, a parasitic worm that is acquired by skin contact with freshwater contaminated by schistosome cerceriae. Communities in which the infection is most endemic have limited access to clean water and healt...hcare services. Up to 150 million adolescent girls and women are estimated to be at risk of FGS and about 16–56 milion womens are living with FGS, with the majority of these in sub-Saharan Africa. The variability of these estimates points to the fact that this neglected tropical disease is not well studied and frequently not prioritized by local, regional, and global health policy makers.
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The development of this target product profile (TPP) was led by the WHO Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) following standard WHO guidance for TPP development. In order to identify and prioritize diagnostic needs, a WHO NTD Diagnostics Technical Advisory Group (DTAG) was form...ed, and different subgroups were created to advise on specific NTDs, including a subgroup working on the human African trypanosomiasis (HAT) diagnostic innovation needs. This group of independent experts included leading scientists, public health officials and endemic-country end-user representatives. Standard WHO Declaration of Interest procedures were followed. A landscape analysis of the available products and of the development pipeline was conducted, and the salient areas with unmet needs were identified.
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With some 134,073,166 people living in endemic communities at risk of infection, Nigeria is the most endemic country in Africa and requires preventive chemotherapy (PC) for a total of 26.3 million persons. The National Schistosomiasis Elimination Programme (NSCHEP), with the support of international... partners, has been implementing PC in Nigeria since 2009 and most recently will need to revise its current strategy (Additional file 1). For example, the new World Health Organization (WHO) guideline has six key recommendations that will dramatically change the implementation of schistosomiasis elimination in endemic countries [3]. However, its impact and programmatic implications will vary from country to country, hence the need for a country-specific analysis. This article discusses these recommendations with specific reference to the challenges and opportunities in Nigeria. We summarise the key pointers in Additional file 1: Box 1 against the six recommendations of the WHO 2022 guideline.
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The control of schistosomiasis was a high priority in China soon after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and schistosomiasis japonica was largely brought under control through 7 decades of effort. However, great challenges still exist to completely eliminate schistosomiasis f...rom the country by 2030 due to climate change, natural disasters, socioeconomic development, environmental protection, etc. The progress of the national schistosomiasis control program and the experience
accumulated over past several decades in China is reviewed in this article, and solutions to achieve the elimination of schistosomiasis through a One Health
approach are explored, which addresses complex health issues from a holistic perspective of human-animal-environment interaction.
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Goal and objectives of the guideline
The goal of this guideline is to provide evidence-based recommendations to countries in their efforts to accomplish schistosomiasis morbidity control and elimination as a public health problem, and to move towards interruption of transmission.
The recommendatio...ns contained herein will help countries to implement national schistosomiasis control and elimination programmes and support efforts to verify the interruption of transmission.
The specific objectives are to provide guidance on:
prevalence thresholds, target age groups and frequency of preventive chemotherapy for schistosomiasis;
establishment of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and snail control activities to support control and elimination of schistosomiasis;
use of diagnostic tests in humans in low transmission areas and for moving to, and evaluating the interruption of transmission of schistosomiasis;
tools for the assessment of Schistosoma spp. infection in snail hosts; and
diagnostic tests for the assessment of schistosomiasis infection in animal reservoirs of infection
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Localized cutaneous leishmaniasis and its evolving forms (diffuse cutaneous leishmaniasis, mucosal leishmaniasis and cutaneous leishmaniasis recidivans), together with the sequela of visceral leishmaniasis (post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis), account for about one million cases of dermal leishmani...ases per year worldwide. Although not lethal, the dermal leishmaniases cause chronic, disfiguring skin lesions which are an important cause of morbidity and stigma.
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Leishmaniasis is a climate-sensitive disease. Changes in temperature, rainfall, and humidity can have strong impacts on
the sandfly vector, altering their distribution and influencing their survival and population sizes. Increased temperatures shorten vector development time, reduce Leishmania para...site incubation time, and increase vector biting rates, allowing transmission
in areas not previously endemic for the disease. Poor and
marginalized communities will be hit disproportionately harder by
the effects of climate change, and droughts, famines, and floods
can also lead to displacement and migration of immunologically
naive people to areas where leishmaniasis is endemic, posing a
threat of leishmaniasis outbreaks.
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La leishmaniasis es una enfermedad tropical desatendida sensible
al clima, trasmitida por la picadura de insectos flebótomos y
se calcula que amenaza a mil millones de personas en todo el mundo.
Esta enfermedad altamente compleja se presenta de varias formas
clínicas, causadas por 20 especies ...del parásito Leishmania.
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More countries eliminate human African trypanosomiasis as a public health problem: Benin and Uganda (gambiense form) and Rwanda (rhodesiense form)
Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT), or sleeping sickness, transmitted by tsetse flies in sub-Saharan Africa, is a life-threatening disease that afflict...s poor rural populations. It is caused by trypanosome parasites of 2 subspecies: Trypanosoma brucei gambiense in West and Central Africa, and T. b. rhodesiense in East Africa.
HAT transmission can be reduced and interrupted by deploying and maintaining capacities for testing people at risk in order to detect and treat cases, and by controlling tsetse populations that are in contact with humans.
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Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT, sleeping sickness) and Animal African Trypanosomiasis (AAT) are neglected tropical diseases generally caused by the same etiological agent, Trypanosoma brucei. Despite important advances in the reduction or disappearance of HAT cases, AAT represents a risky reserv...oir of the infections. There is a strong need to control AAT, as is claimed by the European Commission in a recent document on the reservation of antimicrobials for human use. Control of AAT is considered part of the One Health approach established by the FAO program against African Trypanosomiasis. Under the umbrella of the One Health concepts, in this work, by analyzing the pharmacological properties of the therapeutic options against Trypanosoma brucei spp., we underline the need for clearer and more defined guidelines in the employment of drugs designed for HAT and AAT. Essential requirements are addressed to meet the challenge of drug use and drug resistance development. This approach shall avoid inter-species cross-resistance phenomena and retain drugs therapeutic activity.
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Gambiense human African trypanosomiasis is a deadly infectious disease affecting West and Central Africa, South Sudan and Uganda, and transmitted between humans by tsetse flies. The disease has caused several major epidemics, the latest one in the 1990s. Thanks to recent innovations such as rapid di...agnostic tests for population screening, a single-dose oral treatment and a highly efficient vector control strategy, interruption of transmission of the causative parasite is now within reach. If indeed gHAT has an exclusively human reservoir, this could even result in eradication of the disease. Even if there were an animal reservoir, on the basis of epidemiological data, it plays a limited role. Maintaining adequate postelimination surveillance in known historic foci, using the newly developed tools, should be sufficient to prevent any future resurgence.
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Dracunculiasis, also known as Guinea-worm disease is a parasitic disease caused by the nematode Dracunculus medinensis. The infection is transmitted to humans by drinking water contaminated with the small crustacean copepods (Cyclops) which contain the larvae of D. medinensis. Humans are the princip...al definitive host and Cyclops being the intermediate host. The disease is endemic to the rural and poorer areas of the world and is most common in African countries like Chad, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and Mali. Efforts are underway towards global eradication of this disease. Due to its rarity in developed countries, this activity describes the interprofessional team's role in the assessment and treatment of patients with this condition.
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Research and Reports in Tropical Medicine 2022:13 25–40.
Chagas disease (CD) is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, and it is endemic in Central, South America, Mexico and the South of the United States. It is an important cause of early mortality and morbidity, and it is associated with po...verty and stigma. A third of the cases evolve into chronic cardiomyopathy and gastrointestinal disease. This review proposes strategies to address challenges faced by non-endemic countries
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DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.102891Little progress has been made since the 1960s and 19. 70s to widen the therapeutic arsenal against Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative pathogen of Chagas disease, which remains a frustrating and perplexing infectious disease. This chapter focuses on the strategic and opera...tional challenges in the clinical drug development of a novel antitrypanosomal agent for Chagas disease. The various elements that contribute to a robust assessment of treatment effect including dose selection, choice of patient population, trial methodology, endpoint measures, and regulatory perspectives are discussed. The learnings herein should serve as resource to help researchers and other stakeholders optimize their clinical development plans and speed delivery of new medicines to patients with Chagas disease.
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This review focusses on the interactions between the etiologic agent of Chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, and its triatomine vector. The flagellate mainly colonizes the intestinal tract of the insect. The effect of triatomines on trypanosomes is indicated by susceptibility and refractoriness phenom...ena that vary according to the combination of the strains. Other effects are apparent in the different regions of the gut. In the stomach, the majority of ingested blood trypomastigotes are killed while the remaining transform to round stages. In the small intestine, these develop into epimastigotes, the main replicative stage. In the rectum, the population density is the highest and is where the infectious stage develops, the metacyclic trypomastigote. In all regions of the gut, starvation and feeding of the triatomine affect T. cruzi. In the small intestine and rectum, starvation reduces the population density and more spheromastigotes develop. In the rectum, feeding after short-term starvation induces metacyclogenesis and after long-term starvation the development of specific cells, containing several nuclei, kinetoplasts and flagella. When considering the effects of T. cruzi on triatomines, the flagellate seems to be of low pathogenicity. However, during stressful periods, which are normal in natural populations, effects occur often on the behaviour, eg, in readiness to approach the host, the period of time before defecation, dispersal and aggregation. In nymphs, the duration of the different instars and the mortality rates increase, but this seems to be induced by repeated infections or blood quality by the feeding on infected hosts. Starvation resistance is often reduced by infection. Longevity and reproduction of adults is reduced, but only after infection with some strains of T. cruzi. Only components of the surface coat of blood trypomastigotes induce an immune reaction. However, this seems to act against gut bacteria and favours the development of T. cruzi.
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This technical report presents the epidemiology of human and animal leishmaniases in the EU and its neighbouring countries and concludes that the disease remains widespread and underreported in many countries of southern Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East and that there is a need to improv...e leishmaniasis prevention and control based on robust surveillance in humans, animals, and vectors, and to increase public awareness following a one health approach.
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