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E.g. schistosomiasis control focuses on reducing disease through periodic, large-scale population treatment with praziquantel.
Documentation of elimination as a public health problem is called validation.
EPHP targets:
Schistosomiasis: <1% proportion of heavy intensity schistosomiasis infections STH: <2% proportion of soil-transmitted helminth infections of moderate and heavy intensity due to Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, Necator americanus and Ancylostoma duodenale.
E.g. soil-transmitted helminth infections are of lower public health concern when moderate and heavy infections are below <2% in a community. Interventions need to be continued to maintain this target or increased/modified to interrupt transmission (elimination).
Documentation of elimination of transmission is called verification.
Interruption of transmission definition: Absence of schistosomiasis infection in humans, snails and, in some context animals which act as reservoir hosts.
E.g. Polio was eliminated in the United States by 1979 after widespread vaccination efforts but vaccination is still required until the goal of global eradication is achieved. Although interruption of transmission of schistosomiasis has been achieved in Japan, regions of China and in multiple countries in the Americas the process of verification is yet to be conducted. These achievements in elimination have been achieved through environmental and behavioural interventions to reduce the risk of transmission and exposure and critically through improved standards of living with safe water and sanitation infrastructure.
E.g. Schistosomiasis is endemic in Uganda. A schistosomiasis outbreak occurred in Corsica however France is not endemic for schistosomiasis.
E.g. there is high endemicity of schistosomiasis near to Lake Volta in Ghana as the parasite needs freshwater snails for its life cycle.
E.g. to date, only one human disease has been eradicated: smallpox.
E.g. the incidence of yellow fever in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was 4.4 per 1,000,000 total population in 2010 compared to 0.1 in 2021 (WHO).
E.g. morbidity resulting from STH infection is directly related to the number of worms within an individual’s body.
E.g. the prevalence of schistosomiasis among Ugandan school-aged children is x%.
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