**Clinical Schistosomiasis**

**Chapter 5**

**Clinical, Laboratory and Ultrasonographic Evaluation of**

Schistosomiasis is a parasite chronic disease caused by the helminth of genus *Schistosoma*. The infection is common in parts of Africa, South America, Middle East, Caribbean and Asia where it is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality [1]. Recent estimates suggest there are 700 million people at risk worldwide with almost 200 million infected in Africa alone [2]. In Brazil, the schistosomiasis infection is caused by *Schistosoma mansoni,* where estimates suggest a range from 2.5 million [3, 4] to 12 million people infected [5]. In the state of Minas Gerais, schistoso‐ miasis mansoni is prevalent in 519 out of 853 municipalities, with an estimated number of one

One of the greatest public health problems in countries where the disease is highly endemic, including Brazil, is schistosomiasis control for the following reasons: (a) large intermediary hosts dissemination and their escape mechanisms from molluscicides and from biological

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© 2013 Costa-Silva\*\* et al.; licensee InTech. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2013 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution,

**Patients with Acute Schistosomiasis Mansoni**

Matheus Fernandes Costa-Silva\*\*,

Maria Carolina Barbosa Álvares,

Olindo Assis Martins-Filho,

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/53047

**1. Introduction**

Amanda Cardoso de Oliveira Silveira, Pedro Henrique Gazzinelli-Guimarães,

Helena Barbosa Ferraz, Cristiano Lara Massara,

Paulo Marcos Zech Coelho, Rodrigo Corrêa-Oliveira, Giovanni Gazzinelli and Andréa Teixeira-Carvalho

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

million infected people in an area of 300.000 km² [6].

Denise da Silveira-Lemos\*\*,

Martin Johannes Enk,
