Despite decades of mass drug administration campaigns, schistosomiasis remains one of the world’s most widespread neglected tropical diseases.
Despite decades of mass drug administration campaigns, schistosomiasis remains one of the world’s most widespread neglected tropical diseases. Rice farmers and their families are particularly at risk, as the parasitic worms that cause the disease are spread by freshwater snails found in the standing water of rice fields.
New research published in Nature Sustainability has explored how rice-fish coculturing – an intervention technique that introduces fish into the rice fields – could help reduce disease incidence and poverty along the northern Senegal River basin, a hot spot for schistosomiasis.
“This research points to a new way of thinking about agriculture,” said study coauthor Giulio De Leo, professor of oceans and of Earth systems science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and co-director of the Stanford program for Disease Ecology in a Changing World. “It’s about farming systems that not only grow more food, but also improve human health and support the environment.” The research received funding from the Stanford Sustainability Accelerator based in the Doerr School. Years earlier, De Leo and Stanford colleagues received funding from the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment for a related project to reintroduce native snail-eating prawns to local water sources.
Read More at: Stanford University
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