Schistosomiasis research and control since the retirement of Sir Patrick Manson in 1914

On 14 December 2016, Professor Alan Fenwick OBE delivered the prestigious ‘Manson Lecture’ to the Royal Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene at the Royal Society in London. This paper, based on the Manson Lecture, presents the research carried out to study the epidemiology of schistosomiasis in Africa and test the various control tools as they were proposed from 1914 to date. Subsequently the development of national control programmes against schistosomiasis in Africa from 2000 towards the full national coverage now being delivered in many countries is discussed. In 2000 only Egypt in Africa was offering treatment to the infected and at-risk populations. By 2016 the World Health Assembly resolutions and the WHO NTD targets for 2020 are close to being achieved in some countries where schistosomiasis appears no longer to be ‘a public health problem’. However, in some areas in sub-Saharan Africa, continuous annual treatment is still needed because of remaining ‘hotspots’ where transmission seems to be stubbornly continuing. The author therefore questions whether the timescales to reach eliminations are realistic and whether the tools are available to reach those targets.