The human-snail transmission environment shapes long term schistosomiasis control outcomes: Implications for improving the accuracy of predictive modeling (original) (raw)

Schistosomiasis is a chronic parasitic trematode disease that affects over 240 million people worldwide. The Schistosoma lifecycle is complex, involving transmission via specific intermediate-host freshwater snails. Predictive mathematical models of Schistosoma transmission have often chosen to simplify or ignore the details of environmental human-snail interaction in their analyses. Schistosome transmission models now aim to provide better precision for policy planning of elimination of transmission. This heightens the importance of including the environmental complexity of vector-pathogen interaction in order to make more accurate projections. We propose a nonlinear snail force of infection (FOI) that takes into account an intermediate larval stage (miracidium) and snail biology. We focused, in particular, on the effects of snail force of infection (FOI) on the impact of mass drug administration (MDA) in human communities. The proposed (modified) model was compared to a convention...