New Anti-Schistosoma Approaches in The People's Republic of China: Development of Diagnostics, Vaccines and Other New Techniques Belonging to the 'Omics' Group.

Abstract

A new national schistosomiasis elimination programme will be implemented for the period 2016-20. To support this approach, we have performed a systematic review to assess anti-schistosome approaches in The People's Republic of China and defined research priorities for the coming years. A systematic search was conducted for articles published from January 2000 to March 2015 in international journals. Totally 410 references were published in English between 2000 and 2015 related to schistosomiasis after unrelated references and reviews or comments were further excluded. A set of research priorities has been identified for the near future that would improve the progress toward schistosomiasis elimination in The People's Republic of China. In particular, there is a lack of sensitive and specific tests for the detection of schistosomiasis cases with low parasite burdens, as well as an effective vaccine against schistosomiasis, and there is a need for surveillance tools that can evaluate the epidemic status for guiding the elimination strategy. Hence, we think that schistosomiasis control and elimination will be improved in The People's Republic of China through development of new tools.