Question: How do you avoid getting infected whilst undertaking your research?

Anouk Gouvras answered on 15 Jun 2012:

Hi isabelnoble,
There’s lots of preparation involved before going in the field. I have to fill in a risk assessment form, where I state all the things that could happen to me and how I’m going to avoid these risks. I use the FCO (foreign and commonwealth office) travel advice website: http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/ and the NaTHNac (national travel health network and centre) website http://www.nathnac.org/travel/index.htm

Firstly I have to make sure all my vaccines are up to date (such as hepatitis A and B, yellow fever, typhoid, tetanus, rabies etc).
In the field I only drink bottled water, not from the tap or a well and I am careful about food and personal hygiene (so many things can be avoided by simply washing your hands regularly).
I have to wear insect repellent as a lot of viral, microbial, and parasitic disease are spread through the bite of certain insects such as mosquitoes, sandflies, tseste flies etc. And I take a pill that protects me from malaria (a disease that is transmitted by the bite of a mosquito) every single day that I am in a malaria country.

Specific to the parasite I research: on my profile page you will see the life cycle of the schistosome. It has two hosts that it has to infect in order to complete its life cycle. First the schistosome infects a human when he/she is in the water (washing clothes, bathing, collecting water etc). It detects and swims to the human and then use special enzymes to attach and burrow through the human skin into the blood system (they are microscopic so you don’t notice this, apart form feeling itchy and having a bit of a rash afterwards). Then it uses the blood system to travel to the liver, where it pairs up and starts reproducing eggs. The eggs come out with stool or urine from the infected human. Eventually the eggs hit water (like a lake or a river). The eggs hatch into little larvae and travel to a freshwater snail which they infect. Then they multiply hundreds of times before exiting the snail and swimming trying to detect a human.
I collect two stages of the parasite, the one that comes out of humans (in stool and urine) is not infective to humans but to snails. I also collect schistosomes from infected snails. This is were there is a risk of infection because these stages from the snail are infective to humans. I wear long wellies or thigh waders (like fishermen do) when I go collect the snail from lakes and rivers. I also wear gloves and long sleeves and I use tweezers to collect the snails. That way I avoid getting infected by schistosomes.