Title |
Reduced transmission of human schistosomiasis after restoration of a native river prawn that preys on the snail intermediate host
|
---|---|
Published in |
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, July 2015
|
DOI | 10.1073/pnas.1502651112 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Susanne H Sokolow, Elizabeth Huttinger, Nicolas Jouanard, Michael H Hsieh, Kevin D Lafferty, Armand M Kuris, Gilles Riveau, Simon Senghor, Cheikh Thiam, Alassane N'Diaye, Djibril Sarr Faye, Giulio A De Leo |
Abstract |
Eliminating human parasitic disease often requires interrupting complex transmission pathways. Even when drugs to treat people are available, disease control can be difficult if the parasite can persist in nonhuman hosts. Here, we show that restoration of a natural predator of a parasite's intermediate hosts may enhance drug-based schistosomiasis control. Our study site was the Senegal River Basin, where villagers suffered a massive outbreak and persistent epidemic after the 1986 completion of the Diama Dam. The dam blocked the annual migration of native river prawns (Macrobrachium vollenhoveni) that are voracious predators of the snail intermediate hosts for schistosomiasis. We tested schistosomiasis control by reintroduced river prawns in a before-after-control-impact field experiment that tracked parasitism in snails and people at two matched villages after prawns were stocked at one village's river access point. The abundance of infected snails was 80% lower at that village, presumably because prawn predation reduced the abundance and average life span of latently infected snails. As expected from a reduction in infected snails, human schistosomiasis prevalence was 18 ± 5% lower and egg burden was 50 ± 8% lower at the prawn-stocking village compared with the control village. In a mathematical model of the system, stocking prawns, coupled with infrequent mass drug treatment, eliminates schistosomiasis from high-transmission sites. We conclude that restoring river prawns could be a novel contribution to controlling, or eliminating, schistosomiasis. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United States | 9 | 15% |
United Kingdom | 8 | 13% |
Japan | 3 | 5% |
Australia | 3 | 5% |
Germany | 2 | 3% |
Canada | 2 | 3% |
Papua New Guinea | 1 | 2% |
Dominican Republic | 1 | 2% |
Russia | 1 | 2% |
Other | 4 | 6% |
Unknown | 28 | 45% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Members of the public | 41 | 66% |
Scientists | 17 | 27% |
Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 2 | 3% |
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 2 | 3% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United States | 3 | <1% |
Czechia | 1 | <1% |
Switzerland | 1 | <1% |
Unknown | 303 | 98% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Ph. D. Student | 66 | 21% |
Student > Master | 46 | 15% |
Student > Bachelor | 44 | 14% |
Researcher | 33 | 11% |
Student > Doctoral Student | 13 | 4% |
Other | 47 | 15% |
Unknown | 59 | 19% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 90 | 29% |
Environmental Science | 38 | 12% |
Medicine and Dentistry | 31 | 10% |
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology | 20 | 6% |
Immunology and Microbiology | 14 | 5% |
Other | 52 | 17% |
Unknown | 63 | 20% |