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Schistosomiasis is a major socio-economic and public health problem in many sub-Saharan African countries. After large mass drug administration (MDA) campaigns, prevalence of infection rapidly returns to pre-treatment levels. The traditional egg-based diagnostic for schistosome infections, Kato-Katz, is being substituted in many settings by circulating antigen recognition-based diagnostics, usually the point-of-care circulating cathodic antigen test (CCA). The relationship between these diagnostics is poorly understood, particularly after treatment in both drug-efficacy studies and routine monitoring.We created a model of schistosome infections to better understand and quantify the relationship between these two egg- and adult worm antigen-based diagnostics. We focused particularly on the interpretation of "trace" results after CCA testing. Our analyses suggest that CCA is generally a better predictor of prevalence, particularly after treatment, and that trace CCA results are typically associated with truly infected individuals.Even though prevalence rises to pre-treatment levels only six months after MDAs, our model suggests that the average intensity of infection is much lower, and is probably in part due to a small burden of surviving juveniles from when the treatment occurred. This work helps to better understand CCA diagnostics and the interpretation of post-treatment prevalence estimations.

Original publication

DOI

10.1186/s13071-017-2580-z

Type

Journal article

Journal

Parasites & vectors

Publication Date

08/01/2018

Volume

11

Addresses

Department of Mathematics, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK. j.prada@surrey.ac.uk.

Keywords

Animals, Humans, Schistosoma mansoni, Schistosomiasis mansoni, Diagnostic Tests, Routine, Immunoassay, Microbiological Techniques, Uganda