Safety and infectivity of female cercariae in Schistosoma-naive, healthy participants: a controlled human Schistosoma mansoni infection study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

A controlled human infection model for schistosomiasis (CHI-S) can speed up vaccine development and provides insight into early immune responses following schistosome exposure. Recently, we established CHI-S model using single-sex male-only Schistosoma mansoni (Sm) cercariae in Schistosoma-naïve individuals. Given important differences in antigenic profile and human immune responses to schistosomes of different sex, we pioneered a single-sex female-only CHI-S model for future use in vaccine development.

Methods

We exposed 13 healthy, Schistosoma-naïve adult participants to 10 (n = 3) or 20 (n = 10) female cercariae and followed for 20 weeks, receiving treatment with praziquantel (PZQ) 60 mg/kg at week 8 and 12 after exposure.

Findings

The majority (11/13) p

SUBMITTER: Koopman JPR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10585222 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature