Authors

AV Diaz¹; M Walker¹; JP Webster¹;  ¹ Royal Veterinary College, University of London, UK

Discussion

Schistosomiasis is a widespread neglected tropical disease (NTD) found predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as in Asia, the Caribbean and South America. Species of the causative blood fluke can infect humans and other mammalian definitive hosts, furthermore, reports of hybrid parasites between human-specific and animal-specific schistosomes are increasing. Existing control programs rely on mass drug administration of praziquantel in affected human populations and at present, no formalized control measures targeting African animal reservoirs have been implemented. Nevertheless, within sub-Saharan Africa, emerging reports of use and misuse of praziquantel in livestock plus recognition of the role of bovines as maintenance hosts for schistosome species that spill over and hybridize within humans warrant attention. Thus, we evaluate the potential effectiveness of a test-and-treat strategy to control bovine schistosomiasis using a transmission modelling approach. We show that the simulated test-and-treat strategy can be highly effective in supressing infection by means of an imperfect rapid point-of-care diagnostic applied to a small number of animals per herd. The proposed targeted chemotherapy One Health control strategy could not only improve livestock productivity and subsistence livelihoods but also limit zoonotic transmission and the emergence of hybrids. As acknowledged in the recently launched WHO guidelines, veterinary public health interventions will be a necessary step towards achieving the NTD Roadmap goal of eliminating schistosomiasis as a public health problem by 2030.