Challenges in prevention and control of schistosomiasis in the Sudan

Abstract

the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 200 million people are infected with
schistosomiasis and 600 million are at risk of infection in more than 76 countries¹. Recently
the at risk population has been updated to 779 million. Many of those with schistosomiasis
are in sub-Saharan Africa². In 1984 WHO adopted a strategy to control schistosomiasis morbidity.
Chemotherapy was the main operational component of this strategy focusing on school age children
and other high risk groups³. In 1993, the WHO recommended that in areas of high prevalence
morbidity control remains the strategy of choice and if resources permit, strategies for transmission
control can also be envisaged in all areas4
. When morbidity control became the preferred strategy,
schistosomiasis control programmes have increasingly been integrated into primary health care
settings and schools5,6,7.
The history of scistosomiasis in the Sudan was reviewed by several workers8, 9 within the whole of
the Sudan there has been over the last ten years a serious increase in endemicity and prevalence of
both Schistosoma mansoni and S. haematobium infections as a result of progressive expansion in
water resource projects, population movements and limited control measures. More than seven
million people are expected to be infected in the Sudan as projected by the Director of the National
Schistosomiasis Control Programme, 2009 personal communication.