Abstract

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease of profound medical and veterinary importance across much of the developing world. Environmental change, whether through natural phenomena or human intervention such as mass chemotherapeutic control programmes, impacts the ecological balance and context within which humans and their livestock live, how their shared parasites and pathogens evolve and transmit, and ultimately on human and animal health and disease control. Focusing on field studies from across Africa and Asia, I present recent work aimed to further our knowledge on the basic biology and transmission dynamics of this key neglected tropical disease. Such information should provide decision-makers and health services at both national and community levels with improved tools to target interventions. More generally this research aims to enhance our understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of a wide spectrum of multi-host parasitic diseases of humans and animals in our rapidly changing world.