Children at Greatest Risk
School-age children are most likely to become infected with this silent, destructive disease because it is easily contracted while bathing or swimming in water contaminated with the parasite, which  is shed from snails and infects by penetrating human skin. However, schistosomiasis also can be transmitted simply through contact with contaminated water while performing daily chores, such as washing laundry, fetching water, and herding animals.

Children shoulder the majority of schistosomiasis' consequences, especially poor growth and impaired cognitive function. For communities already burdened by poverty and ravaged by scourges such as malaria and HIV/AIDS, schistosomiasis is especially devastating.

Other effects of the disease include anemia, bladder dysfunction, kidney and liver disease, and premature death. The urinary form of schistosomiasis is associated with increased risks for bladder cancer in adults.

Strategies To Fight Schistosomiasis
Schistosomiasis can be controlled now by one of the great miracle medical discoveries of the 1980s: the oral medicine praziquantel. Now that costs of the medicine have dropped from more than $2 USD per dose to 18 cents, great strides can be made in treating schistosomiasis.

Studies of those treated show that within six months of receiving a dose of praziquantel, up to 90 percent of the damage due to the schistosomiasis infection can be reversed. In the past, praziquantel has been used successfully to treat millions of people at risk for or infected with schistosomiasis in Brazil, Egypt, and China.

Since 1999, nearly 800,000 praziquantel treatments have been distributed in three states in Nigeria. Although this success is remarkable, the program has reached only about half of the children in need in those areas. Unlike Mectizan, the drug used to fight river blindness, and albendazole, used with Mectizan to fight lymphatic filariasis, no company donates praziquantel on a large scale, so the Center's distribution is limited to the amount it can afford to purchase.

Without sufficient funds for provision of safe water, mobilization and education of affected communities, as well as provision of sanitary facilities, such as latrines, schistosomiasis will remain a neglected disease in most of Nigeria and other sub-Saharan countries. The Carter Center hopes the hard work and success of its partners in Nigeria will kick-start a nationwide initiative, with increased government funding, that will address the quiet plague of schistosomiasis in Nigeria.