Schistosomiasis Vaccine

A schistosomiasis vaccine is a vaccine against schistosomiasis, also known as bilharzia or snail fever, a parasitic disease caused by several species of fluke of the genus Schistosoma; no effective vaccine for the disease yet exists. Schistosomiasis affects more than 200 million people worldwide, mostly in rural agricultural and peri-urban areas of the developing world, and about 10 percent of those infected suffer severe health complications. Chemotherapeutic drugs such as praziquantel are currently considered safe and effective treatments, but reinfection occurs frequently after drug treatment, which is why a vaccine is sought to provide longer-term protection, and experimental vaccination has succeeded in animal models. Paramyosin has been proposed as a vaccine candidate, and Sm-p80, also called calpain, is the sole schistosome vaccine candidate tested for both prophylactic and antifecundity effect in mouse and baboon models, showing reductions in adult worm numbers and egg production and readiness for human clinical trials; another target under study is Sm14.