What we will do

The HUGS project can be split into three interrelated studies: human epidemiology, livestock and wildlife epidemiology and medical malacology. Each is drawn together by how humans and animals make use of the aquatic habitat where exposure to schistosomes or contamination with schistosomes takes place.

HUGS research is based around the four interlinked questions that:

1.Test if the proportion of hybrid coinfection is uniform across two representative communities where S. haematobium-mattheei or S. haematobium-bovis occur, inclusive of household GPS mapping/participant questionnaire for associated local risk factors;

2. Verify if the proportion and spatial patterns of hybrid coinfection holds or alters after praziquantel treatment in these communities in a 1-year longitudinal follow-up study;

3. Ascertain if there is any association of altered host morbidity in hybrid coinfection as measured by portable ultrasonography and point-of-contact (POC) assays;

4.Reveal hybrid environmental transmission upon malacological and abattoir surveillance, interrogating collected schistosomes with advanced genetic profiling noting any hybridization directional bias.

The background to the HUGS study and its scientific rationale can be best described in 3 academic papers.

The first entitled "Schistosome interactions within the Schistosoma haematobium group, Malawi"(link is external)(opens in a new tab) written by the HUGS team with Dr Bonnie Webster as first author, describes for the first time the occurrence of hybrid schistosomes in Malawi and is a seminal flag of the hybrid problem in Central Africa.

The second entitled "Future schistosome hybridizations: will all Schistosoma haematobium hybrids please stand-up!"(link is external)(opens in a new tab) draws attention to the possible novel hybrid variants that already exist or appear in future. It poses the question does the transmission of hybrid schistosome follow a different temporal and spatial dyanmic to the more common S. haematobium.

The third entitled "An outbreak of intestinal schistosomiasis, alongside increasing urogenital schistosomiasis prevalence, in primary school children on the shoreline of Lake Malawi, Mangochi District, Malawi"(link is external)(opens in a new tab)  demonstrates the unusual changes in snail biology and fauna within Lake Malawi which are acting as environmental drivers for altered transmission of schistosomiasis.

Collectively, HUGS research makes broader reference to the newly revised WHO Guideline for Schistosomiasis and the 2021-2030 Roadmap for control of neglected tropical diseases.

First insight into zoonotic schistosomiasis and molecular identification of hybrid schistosomes in Malawi

A seminar delivered on World NTD Day 2022 - HUGS researchers molecular epidemiologist Dr Lucas Cunningham  and veterinarian Dr Alexandra Juhasz