a disease of the urinary tract and intestine caused by parasitic worms—trematodes of the family Schistosomatidae. It was originally called bilharzia after the German physician T. Bilharz, who discovered the causative agent in 1851.
any one of several diseases of humans and animals caused by helminths of the family Schistosomatidae of the class Trematoda.
Schistosomiases of humans occur mainly in tropical countries. The causative agents belong to the genus Schistosoma, whose females deposit eggs in the small blood vessels of the urinary bladder and intestine. After entering these organs, the eggs are excreted with urine or feces. Larvae (miracidia) emerge from the eggs after they reach water and are ingested by mollusks, in which they reproduce and develop. The cycle is completed with the emergence of larvae with tails (cercariae) in the water. The cercariae penetrate the human body through the skin and mucous membranes. Individuals become infected after working or swimming in bodies of water contaminated by the urine and feces of persons suffering from schistosomiasis or after drinking water from such bodies of water.
Skin rashes, itching, and sometimes fever occur in the early stage of schistosomiasis. If the genitalia and intestine are affected (bilharziasis), the patient feels a sharp pain upon urination, the urine becomes tinged with blood, and chronic colitis, with mucus and blood appearing in the feces, develops. Schistosomiasis is treated with antimony agents, for example, Anthiomaline (or anthiolimine); it is also treated with Ambilhar (or niridazole). The disease can be prevented by protecting lakes and streams from pollution, by banning swimming in stagnant or slow-flowing water in areas where schistosomiasis is endemic, and by boiling drinking water or filtering it through cloth.
N. N. PLOTNIKOV