Institute of Global Health Innovation

By Professor Alan Fenwick OBE, Director of SCI (Schistosomiasis Control Initiative), Imperial College, London)

Schistosomiasis is a type of infection caused by parasites that live in fresh water, such as rivers or lakes, in subtropical and tropical regions worldwide.  It is also known as bilharzia.

The Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI) at Imperial College London supports Ministries of Health and Education in 16 countries to deliver medicines to treat people infected with schistosomiasis and three intestinal worms. The medicines are donated by various pharmaceutical companies, Merck KgGA (praziquantel), GSK (albendazle) and Johnson and Johnson (mebendazole), and for the most part, the targets are school aged children.

The SCI’s role includes advocacy at all levels in the countries from Ministers down through regional officials to teachers and health staff who deliver the medicines. These medicines are safe to swallow and effective. For the most part they are delivered annually through schools or through communities. We assist the countries with mapping so that the geographical distribution of the diseases is known, and then with preparing medicine donation requests. (more…)

Read SCI needs to expand coverage to help treat 100 million children a year against bilharzia (schistosomiasis) and worms. in full

Gabrielle Prager, Winner of IGHI’s 2013 Student Challenges Competition guides us through her journey throughout the contest and the next steps for her research project.

This is the problem:  In 2011, 243 million people required treatment for schistosomiasis. 28.1 million were reported to have received that treatment. Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease.  What is it? It is a blood dwelling fluke. How is it treated? Mass Drug Administration with Praziquantel has been the mainstay of most treatment programmes. Uganda was the first country in Africa to initiate a national control programme coordinated by the Ministry of Health with technical and financial support from the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI). The SCI have been involved in the mapping, monitoring and evaluation of schistosomiasis.  Within two years Uganda saw a decrease in prevalence and infection intensity. As Mass Drug Administration continues, infection intensities and prevalence decreases and areas of lower infection intensities and prevalence begin to be targeted. In lower intensity areas, better diagnostic tools are required. Finding a better diagnostic tool is the beginning of my story.

Dr. Charlotte Gower works closely with Dr. Poppy Lamberton in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and they have been involved in tackling this neglected tropical disease for a number of years. Dr. Gower has been investigating the identification and development of new diagnostic tools, in particular loop-mediated isothermal amplification or LAMP. LAMP is an isothermal DNA amplification technique, which allows amplification in less than an hour at a single temperature, which decreases the need for complex and expensive lab equipment. Dr. Lamberton’s fieldwork took her to Uganda to monitor infection and examine drug resistance. I had the good fortune of working with both these extraordinary women. (more…)

Read IGHI Student Challenges Competition: Diagnosing Schistosomiasis: My Journey so Far… in full