Schistosomes

Drilling water wells in Ghana
 Schistosomiasis, also called snail fever or bilharziasis, is thought to cause more illness and disability than any other PARASITIC DISEASE, except malaria. Almost unknown in industrialized countries, schistosomiasis infects 200 million people in 76 countries of the tropical developing world.

A FLATWORM that spends part of its life in a freshwater snail host causes schistosomiasis. Multiplying in the snail, a microscopic infective larval stage is released that can penetrate human skin painlessly in 30 to 60 seconds. The larvae grow to adulthood and migrate to the veins around the intestines or bladder, where mating occurs. The eggs produced may lodge in these tissues and cause disease, or they are passed out in urine or feces, where they reach fresh water and hatch to infect snails and repeat the cycle over and over.

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