Review of 2022 WHO guidelines on the control and elimination of schistosomiasis.

J Russell Stothard, Amadou Garba, Paul Hagan, M Hassan Murad, Michel Vaillant, Song Liang, Reginald Quansah, Charles O Obonyo, Eric S Loker, Paolo Eusebi, Anthony Danso-Appiah, Xiao-Nong Zhou, Jürg Utzinger, Joanne P Webster, Mamadou Souncalo Traoré, Nathan C Lo, Fadjar Satrija, Reda M R Ramzy, Joseph R Mwanga, Francisca Mutapi, Nicholas Midzi, Margaret A Mafe, Charles H King, Fatma M Kabole, Narcis Kabatereine, Mamoun Homeida, Fiona M Fleming, Daniel G Colley, Fernando Schemelzer Moraes Bezerra

Journal: The Lancet. Infectious diseases 2022;22(11):e327-e335

PMID: 35594896

Abstract

Schistosomiasis is a helminthiasis infecting approximately 250 million people worldwide. In 2001, the World Health Assembly (WHA) 54.19 resolution defined a new global strategy for control of schistosomiasis through preventive chemotherapy programmes. This resolution culminated in the 2006 WHO guidelines that recommended empirical treatment by mass drug administration with praziquantel, predominately to school-aged children in endemic settings at regular intervals. Since then, school-based and community-based preventive chemotherapy programmes have been scaled-up, reducing schistosomiasis-associated morbidity. Over the past 15 years, new scientific evidence-combined with a more ambitious goal of eliminating schistosomiasis and an increase in the global donated supply of praziquantel-has highlighted the need to update public health guidance worldwide. In February, 2022, WHO published new guidelines with six recommendations to update the global public health strategy against schistosomiasis, including expansion of preventive chemotherapy eligibility from the predominant group of school-aged children to all age groups (2 years and older), lowering the prevalence threshold for annual preventive chemotherapy, and increasing the frequency of treatment. This Review, written by the 2018-2022 Schistosomiasis Guidelines Development Group and its international partners, presents a summary of the new WHO guideline recommendations for schistosomiasis along with their historical context, supporting evidence, implications for public health implementation, and future research needs.

Copyright © 2022 World Health Organization. Published by Elsevier Ltd/Inc/BV. All rights reserved. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Address: Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA. Electronic address: [email protected].; Research Laboratory in Parasitology and Mollusc Biology, Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza, Brazil.; Department of Microbiology, Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.; SCI Foundation, Edinburgh House, London, UK.; Academy of Medical Sciences and Technology, Khartoum, Sudan.; Accelerating Resilient, Innovative, and Sustainable Elimination of NTDs, Vector Control Division, Kampala, Uganda.; Ministry of Health Zanzibar, Zanzibar, Tanzania.; Center for Global Health and Diseases, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, USA.; Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Lagos, Nigeria.; National Institute of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Child Care, Harare, Zimbabwe.; Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, Tackling Infections to Benefit Africa Partnership, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK.; Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Behavioral Sciences, School of Public Health, Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences, Mwanza, Tanzania.; National Nutrition Institute, General Organization for Teaching Hospitals and Institutes, Cairo, Egypt.; School of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedicine, IPB University, Bogor, Indonesia.; Department of Tropical Disease Biology, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK.; National Institute for Research in Public Health, Bamako, Mali.; Department of Pathobiology and Population Science, Royal Veterinary College, University of London, London, UK.; Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Allschwil, Switzerland; University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.; National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai, China; School of Global Health, Chinese Center for Tropical Diseases Research, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.; School of Public Health, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana.; Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy.; Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.; Centre for Global Health Research, Kenya Medical Research Institute, Kisumu, Kenya.; Department of Environmental and Global Health, College of Public Health and Health Professions, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA; Emerging Pathogens Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.; Competence Centre for Methodology and Statistics, Luxembourg Institute of Health, Strassen, Luxembourg.; Evidence-based Practice Center, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, NY, USA.; Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Hull, Hull, UK.; Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland.
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