The Culture of Schistosoma mansoni and Production of Life Cycle Stages

Schistosoma mansoni is a trematode parasite with a freshwater snail intermediate host but whose definitive host is human. Schistosomiasis is a chronically debilitating, and often fatal disease affecting 200- 300 million people in many of the developing countries. In order to carry out laboratory studies on this organism it is often necessary to obtain large amounts of the various life cycle stages. It is only possible to do this if an efficient means of maintaining the intermediate snail host is available and a suitable experimental host can be provided.