Anyone know the name of the tablet used to cure these little buggers?
Most Zimbo's should know.

Check the American Center for Disease Control site:

http://www.dpd.cdc.gov/dpdx/html/schistosomiasis.htm

Easily treated if not left go for a long period of time. The problem you will have is getting someone who is not a tropical fever specialist to even have a clue. Insist that they look for it. We affectionitely called it the kreeping crud distiled through a snails gut although not exactly true. These nasty little worms will travel great distances and to divrse organs. You will be the hit of all the med students as they try to outguess their professor as to what you really have. Tell them you have been swimming in the wonderful healing waters of the rift valley. Then ask immediatly for the drug Praziquantel. It should stat right away but take a couple weeks to ge the full effect. In the meantime make sure they give you extra liquids and electrolytes.

Here in Zim we take BILTRICIDE. We dose up every six months regardless.

CHIDUMBU

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praziquantel

Biltricide

One of our project managers caught that, likely from swimming in the pool at the Addis Hilton in Addis Abbaba in 1988. Manifested itself in Nairobi while he was jogging a couple of years later. He went to the U. of Utah Med School. Took them three days to diagnose him but they cured him. Nasty disease.

Duck lice (cercarial itch) are similiar varmints in the water, but die shortly after getting under a human's skin. I've had that from Australia (and it's around most places), as have many others, but was certainly glad there were no primitive human populations within 50 miles to transmit schistosomiasis.

I had a ggod friend who was an ex Zim-pat in the early 70s. He went to school in the UK. Came back to Cambridge after spending a couple weeks with his family. The guy got really sick and ended up in the hospital. No one there could figure it out. One call to his dad who was a doctor in Zim at the time and he knew exactly what it was. Proper treatment for couple weeks and everything was fine. This was just before the family bailed from the country. Point was no one at the hospital in the UK had a clue what they were looking for. His pop solved it in 5 minutes on the phone. That is why you need someone who specializes in this stuff if you are not where it is commonly seen. That was an interesting summer. I still have a pic of his little sister holding a couple of green mambas that always hung around the veranda. Damn things give me the willies but they are beautiful in their own right.

ozhunter,

Some nasty pictures, and more than you ever wanted to know about Bilharzia or Schistosomiasis.

The microscope photos look like something out of a science fiction horror movie.

River Danger

Cheers,

~ Alan

This subject reminds me of a conversation back in 1986. I was hunting Charara with Roy Vincent, and we'd been walking all day. I don't remember if we were hunting buffalo or lion on that particular day, but it was one or the other. It was hot and we were long since out of water. We were hot, tired and thirsty as hell. We'd crossed the Charara River quite a few times and finally he couldn't take it any longer. Roy bent down in a clear pool and carefully began drinking. I was hesitant and asked about getting bilharzia from drinking river water. He replied that if I was going to get it, I was already too late to worry about it since those little parasites can penetrate through your skin. Since we'd been walking across the river back and forth during the day, he figured the added risk of drinking wasn't that much worse.

Damn, that water was good!

Bilharzia Kills Jinja People
Donald Kiirya
13 October 2010


Kampala — RESIDENTS of Rippon landing site on the shores of Lake Victoria in Jinja town have expressed concern over the increasing number of deaths due to bilharzia, a water borne disease.

The residents, who mostly deal in charcoal, blamed the Government for not providing them with drugs.

Ddirisa Kawoya, the chairperson of the charcoal off loaders, said every two weeks, a resident suffers from bilharzia. "We also have a problem of the water hyacinth. We remove it using bare hands because we do not have protective gear."

Boniface Wadenga, the LCI chairperson of Loco village in Jinja, said: "Three people have so far died of bilharzia at the landing site. Residents defecate in polythene bags and throw them in the lake."

He said Rippon landing site has just one toilet.

Wadenga added that malaria and HIV were other killer diseases in the area.

However, Grace Bagaga, a health assistant in Jinja, told New Vision on Friday that the health department has been supplying bilharzia drugs to leaders in Loco village and Rippon landing site. He dismissed claims that some residents had died of bilharzia.

quote:

blamed the Government for not providing them with drugs.

Sounds like the US!!!

The once great USofA...becoming a third world country...courtesy of the Dems.

Any more info on these little buggers and their eggs?

Does it cause peripheral nerve issues over time? Plus myalgia, neuralgia?

I've spent a bit of time walking in rivers in Tanzania (that's where the rock outcrops are) as long as there are no crocs.

Don't mean to crash your thread Oz. Good topic.

Cheers, Chris

I don't believe this is something to be cured...only controlled over time. It can be beaten into submission though by, if we are to believe Wikipedia, "using a single oral dose of the drug praziquantel annually". As I used to live about a block from the Nile, eat at some sketchy places (and not so sketchy), and take ice in my beverages, it was always something I worried about. So far so good....touch wood.