Human schistosomiasis otherwise called bilharzia, is a fresh- water snail transmitted intravascular debilitating disease resulting from infection by the parasitic dimorphic Schistosoma trematode worms, which lives in the bloodstream of humans. The World Health Organization (WHO) regards the disease ...as a neglected tropical disease, with an estimated 732 million persons being vulnerable to infection worldwide in renowned transmission areas. Steinmann and co-workers documented that over 200 million individuals from Africa, Asia, and South America are infected with this disease. The WHO further estimated that schistosome infections and geohelminths accounts for over 40% of the world tropical disease burden with the exclusion of malaria. Humans get infected with this disease when they make contact with water contaminated with the skin-penetrating cercariae. Prevalence of schistosomiasis, at present, is still high in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2008, 17.5 million people were treated globally for schistosomiasis, 11.7 million of those from sub-Saharan Africa only. Approximately 120 million individuals in sub-Saharan Africa have schistosomiasis-related symptoms while about 20 million undergo hardship as a result of chronic presentations of the disease. more

Theodor Bilharz, a German professor of anatomy and chief of surgery at the Kasr El Ani Hospital of Cairo from 1850, first identified an infective organism, Distomum hematobium in 1851, which was renamed Schistosoma haematobium in 1858. It arose from a cestode worm, Hymenoleptis nana, lying in the sm...all colon of an Egyptian patient. He also discovered a trematode worm at the same time from an autopsy, thought to be the cause of urinary Schistosomiasis. Bilharz died from typhoid fever in 1862 at the age of 37. The Theodor Bilharz Research Institute in Giza, Egypt, stands as a tribute to him today. F. Milton published the first recorded peer-reviewed article report on Schistosomiasis in 1914. more