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Fig. 1 | Infectious Diseases of Poverty

Fig. 1

From: Towards interruption of schistosomiasis transmission in sub-Saharan Africa: developing an appropriate environmental surveillance framework to guide and to support ‘end game’ interventions

Fig. 1

Key environmental aspects in schistosome transmission as framed by contamination- and exposure- related behaviours. Schistosome eggs can be introduced to freshwater by any infected vertebrate host, in this instance a mother and her pre-school-aged child (who are not targetted in PC campaigns) are depicted. After maturation in keystone species of freshwater snail hosts, schistosome cercariae are released often in copious numbers, which have a potential to infect any demographic group, like the school-aged children in the image depicting exposure-related behaviours (who are the current target of PC campaigns). Each day the emergence, death and decay of the larval stages contributes to aquatic planktonic assemblage and environmental (e) DNA components. Only those aquatic habitats that contain snails patently shedding cercariae pose a potential or actual threat to human health

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