Immunity to Schistosomes: Advances and Prospects

Excerpt

Until recently, immunology has had relatively little to offer for the control of schistosomiasis, a disease that already affects more than 200 million people and which is, because of the widespread development of irrigation schemes, an increasing public health problem. On the one hand conventional parasitologic diagnostic techniques have proved more sensitive and specific than immunologic methods using crude parasite antigens. On the other hand, no vaccines are available, and control has rested largely on standard methods of chemotherapy, mollusciciding, and water engineering and sanitation. In both diagnosis and control, there is now room for new immunologic approaches.

The problems