Question: How serious is Schistosomiasis?

Anouk Gouvras answered on 18 Jun 2012:

Hi meganwheeler,

Being infected with one schistosome is not that serious. And can be treated with one pill. However being infected by a pair of schistosomes that can produce eggs is serious. This is when schistosomiasis becomes a chronic, debilitating disease. It is the eggs, that either pierce through the tissues of the intestinal wall or the urinary tract wall OR get trapped in organs and tissues and cause a strong immune response leading to major tissue damage, that cause this serious disease. Add ontop of that that people at risk of schistosomiasis live in areas where they get infected not just once but many, many times, leading to a build up of parasites in their liver and a large amount of eggs being released into their blood system daily. Children can become infected from as young as the age of 4 and there is now evidence of babies becoming infected. By the time the children are 12 they can have hundreds to over 1000 of eggs coming out in their urine or stool causing them to feel pain everytime they pee or poo, to lose blood through their urine and stool, to generally feel sick and tired. Then the eggs trapped in their tissues can lead to all sorts of problems such as malnutrition (child can not absorb nutrients from food), growth-stunting (child remains short), anaemia (child has less oxygen being carried round in the bloodstream), and liver or spleen enlargement (the liver or spleen becomes bigger than normal, sometimes so big the child looks pregnant), then later in life there are problems such as renal failure, severe liver damage, bladder cancer, infertility etc.

It is thought that today over 200 million people are infected with schistosomes world-wide (85% of who live in sub-Saharan Africa), over 120 million people show symptoms of the disease. And around 700 million people, in 76 countries, risk getting infected.