The World Health Organization has recommended the adoption of a new monitoring method for the bilharzia disease developed by a researcher from the Hebrew University

Bilharzia affects about 200 million people in areas such as Africa, South America, the Middle East and the Far East. It causes chronic damage to the intestine, liver or urinary system and may be fatal in some patients

The World Health Organization recommends using a new method for monitoring the bilharzia disease developed by Dr. Yosef Hamburger from the Kovin Center for Infectious and Tropical Diseases at the Hebrew University and Dr. Ibrahim Abbasi from Al Quds University. This recommendation and other recommendations are currently being discussed at the World Health Organization center in Geneva with the aim of developing official guidelines of the organization regarding the treatment of bilharzia.

Bilharzia affects about 200 million people in areas such as Africa, South America, the Middle East and the Far East. It causes chronic damage to the intestine, liver or urinary system and may be fatal in some patients. The special life cycle of the parasite that causes the disease is the reason why the infection rates are particularly high among poor populations that use open water reservoirs: larvae that are released from the parasite's eggs in water bodies infect different species of snails, and after the several-week culture in the snail, they come out and infect humans who come into contact with the water . When a population is infected with the parasite, it transfers it back to the water bodies it uses by contaminating the water with excreta. Extensive actions to reduce the morbidity have been made in recent years, but while the morbidity has been reduced with the help of drug treatment, the infection rate remains high.

Dr. Hamburger and Dr. Abbasi were invited to a meeting held by the World Health Organization to present a new approach they developed for mass monitoring of the potential for the spread of the disease after attempts have been made to eradicate it. According to Dr. Hamburger, "After actions are taken to eradicate the disease and the rate of infection decreases, the need for monitoring measures arises that will identify exactly what the remaining infection potential is after the application of the eradication measures, and that will determine whether it has been completely eliminated."

To meet this need, Dr. Hamburger and Dr. Abbasi developed a monitoring method based on molecular identification of the parasite at the stage when it is housed in the snails. In the first stage, a genome study of the bilharzia parasites was carried out, with the help of which DNA sequences were identified that can be used as markers for highly sensitive identification of the parasites in the infected snails. In the second step, Dr. Hamburger and Dr. Abbasi used these markers to test the infection rate among approximately 6,000 snails collected over a year from 23 infection sites in Kenya close to the Indian Ocean coast. At the same time, the rate of infection in the people living in this area was checked. According to Dr. Hamburger, "a correspondence was found between the infection rate in snails and the infection rate and intensity of infection in human populations. That's why it was decided that the rate of infection in snails, which are available at any time for collection, is a good measure to estimate the rate of spread of infection."

So far, the method has been successfully tested in Kenya in collaboration with the Kenyan Ministry of Health and the American Case Western University. Now Dr. Hamburger and Dr. Abbasi are working on simplifying the method, as well as on the possibility of testing the snails in groups, which will streamline and significantly reduce the process and make it more available and convenient in developing countries.