Active Plants, Animals & Ecology Infection & Immunity

Species hybridisation and interactions in schistosomes in Cameroon (SHIS-CAM): Targeting biological research to accelerate elimination of schistosomiasis in Central Africa

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Associated organisations Centre for Schistosomiasis and Parasitology · Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine · Universite de Perpignan Europe PMC affiliations are not treated as award recipients or mapped locations.
Funding £4.5M
Period May 2024 — May 2032

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Parasite hybrids—crosses between different species of schistosome worms—are spreading through Cameroon’s human and livestock populations, threatening to undermine decades of progress against the debilitating disease schistosomiasis. This matters because current control programmes, which rely on mass drug administration and snail eradication, were designed for single-species infections. Hybrid schistosomes can infect both humans and animals, may resist standard treatments, and could shift transmission patterns in ways that existing surveillance systems cannot detect. The research team has already documented worrying levels of hybridisation in Cameroon, but no one knows how widespread these hybrids are, whether they cause more severe disease, or how they persist across host species. Over eight years, the project will map hybrid prevalence in people and livestock across Cameroon, track infection shifts in a five-year longitudinal study with biannual treatment, and develop new environmental surveillance tools—including GPS tracking of livestock, aquatic habitat profiling, and eDNA metabarcoding of water bodies—to detect schistosome and snail signatures. If successful, the work will provide the epidemiological clarity needed to adapt the World Health Organization’s 2030 elimination roadmap for Central Africa, where hybrid parasites now pose a disruptive threat to control efforts.

View original technical description
Even though Cameroon has been at the forefront of successful schistosomiasis control nationwide, we have recently documented worrisome levels of parasite cross-species interactions, hybridisations and genetic diversity. This exposes key knowledge gaps in effective management of emerging hybrid-schistosomes, raising disruptive concerns that unsettle progress within the WHO-NTD Roadmap 2021-2030. SHIS-CAM (species hybridisation and interactions in schistosomes in Cameroon) addresses these concerns with an ambitious investigation that provides fresh epidemiological insight with scientific clarity, about long- term impacts of hybrid schistosomes. Fostering a new cross-country One Health collaboration, our three interlinked primary objectives [% allocation, implementation years] will: Obj-1 [15%, years 1-3]; determine the national magnitude and respective epidemiology of hybrid schistosomes in humans and livestock, specifically referencing the S. haematobium group, and prior epidemiological assessments of urogenital and intestinal schistosomiasis. Obj-2 [60%, years 2-8]; verify, in a 5-year longitudinal population study offering biannual preventive chemotherapy, if the emergence of hybrids continues without sufficient abate, alongside noting any significant infection shifts by age or gender, in host morbidity and treatment efficacy. Obj-3 [25%, years 2-8]; explore new environmental transmission surveillance frameworks and experimental infections, referencing livestock GPS-mapping, aquatic habitat profiling with advanced eDNA-metabarcoding, collectively tracking pertinent schistosome and snail signatures, and cross-interactions.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Alexandra Juhasz (EPMC Awardee)Jêrome Boissier (EPMC Awardee)Louis-Albert Tchuem Tchuenté (EPMC Awardee)Russell Stothard (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Hybridisation in urogenital schistosomiasis (HUGS): A multidisciplinary longitudinal population study revealing the transmission biology, epidemiological impact and clinical importance of Schistosoma haematobium-hybrids in Malawi
Epidemiology and evolution of zoonotic schistosomiasis in a changing world
Integrated risk mapping and targeted snail control to support schistosomiasis elimination in Brazil and Cote d'Ivoire under future climate change
Sustainable control of livestock schistosomiasis in Africa to improve human and animal health and productivity
Functional genomics to unveil the early intra-mammalian development of schistosomes

Original classification

Discovery Award

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.