Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease which affects 250 million people globally. More than 700 million people live in endemic areas which are predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa. Schistosome infection is caused by parasitic flatworms and occurs when people have contact with freshwater sources such as lakes and rivers. This enables the parasite to bore through the skin and establish an active infection in the human host.
There is no vaccine for schistosomiasis. At-risk communities are repeatedly treated with praziquantel through mass drug administration campaigns, but individuals are often reinfected rapidly. Consequently, mass drug administration programmes need to be combined with other control measures such as behaviour change strategies to meet the World Health Organization's (WHO) 2030 goals for eliminating schistosomiasis as a public health problem. One major challenge in devising multifaceted control strategies is that there is limited knowledge about the groups most at risk of exposure to schistosomes and the factors determining risk of exposure.
In this study, researchers from Oxford Population Health and the Uganda Ministry of Health surveyed 2,867 individuals across 38 diverse villages in Eastern and Western Uganda. The individuals were all part of SchistoTrack, a community-based study aiming to better understand schistosome exposure and resulting infection.
Read the full story on the Nuffield Department of Population Health (NDPH) website.