Praziquantel is the drug that is used for the treatment for Schistosomiasis in the Philippines. However, it is not enough to control the prevalence of Schistosomiasis.
Simple, old, yet very helpful strategies such as control of snail population (their breeding areas) and proper human waste disposal can be done by the Filipinos for the prevention and control of schistosomiasis here in the Philippines.
Schistosomiasis also known as bilharzia, a disease caused by parasitic worms. Schistosoma mansoni, S. haematobium and S. japonicum causes infection to humans. Since, the drug praziquantel isn’t enough as a treatment. What we can do is to prevent it to avoid further infections. In order to prevent this, avoid swimming in fresh water especially in places where schistosomiasis occurs. Drink safe water and practice proper water treatment. Boiling water for at least 1-2 minutes will kill any bacteria or parasite living in the water. Filtering will be helpful also. Water bath heating for 1-2 minutes should be safe to use for bathing.
Treatment of infected people, control of the snail population and sanitary measures to avoid contact of snails with human faeces/urine. There were also attempts to control the schistosoma sporocysts by other trematodes that produce redial stages in the snails. in such a super infection the rediae feed on the schistosoma sporocysts. When doing research on Gigantobilharzia (bird schistosome) I found the parasite only in young Melanoides snails while the fully grown snails were infectedf ith rediae of Philophthalmus gralli (eye flukes in birds). Most probably, the redidiae of the eye flukes had eaten the sporocysts of the blood flukes that were present in the younger snails.
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