The use of non-pharmaceutical interventions for the prevention and control of schistosomiasis in sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review

ABSTRACT

Schistosomiasis remains a major cause of global parasitic morbidity. Current control strategies focus on pharmaceutical approaches using Mass Drug Administration (MDA) to distribute praziquantel in endemic areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Our paper systematically reviewed the literature on non-pharmaceutical interventions for enhanced schistosomiasis control. We conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed English language literature using PubMed, Embase and Web of Science. Our search terms were limited to the year 2000 to March 2019 to reflect the period of the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals. We initially identified 1733 publications, which were reduced to 1324 after screening by title and abstract. After the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 1312 studies were excluded. Following this, we had a total of 12 articles, which we later screened by full text. Out of the twelve articles, seven were excluded for being systematic reviews or examining clinical and nutritional aspects of schistosomiasis control. We finally remained with five studies that met our inclusion criteria. Our paper indicates a gap in non-pharmaceutical based interventions for schistosomiasis control. We propose that future research addresses this gap by engaging communities in participatory approaches such as environmental sanitation, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), health education and economic empowerment.

KEYWORDS:

• Schistosomiasis
• sub-Saharan Africa
• non-pharmaceutical
• control
• prevention

Acknowledgments

We appreciate the constant support provided by Jackie Stapleton in the development of the search strategies, including the search terms and study selection procedures. We also appreciate the support from Marie Ann Hardy, Prof. Roy Bouer and all the staff at the University of Waterloo, Water Institute, for their expertise and technical advice. We sincerely thank Carise Thompson for her support during the review process and the members of the Go Help lab for their inspiration. Author contributions: BM conceptualised the paper and conducted the database search with support from the health sciences librarian Jackie Stapleton. He also wrote and revised the paper under the supervision of SJE.; EAO participated in the screening of the study abstracts for eligibility, data extraction, and the manuscript write up and revision.; SJE supervised the development of the paper from inception to completion; she facilitated the search strategies, participated in the data extraction and manuscript write up.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Queen Elizabeth scholarship-Advanced Scholars (QES-AS).