Seventeen volunteers from the Netherlands have let worms from the genus Schistosoma into their bodies for twelve weeks. Why? To help develop the vaccine against schistosomiasis and to get the 1 200 $ reward.
© Hans Hillewaert / , via Wikimedia Commons
The already mentioned worms are quite nasty as they can cause many serious health issues like kidney failure, bladder cancer or even infertility. And in infected children, they can negatively influence growth and the ability to learn. A vaccine could potentially prevent many of these issues. But it has a small problem. Making the study is quite expensive, especially in the most affected areas like Sub-Saharan Africa or South America. And getting that money is no easy thing so you first need to prove you are actually working on such a vaccine.
This is where our seventeen volunteers come into play. Each of them has 20 male larvae in their body (so they cannot reproduce). And after the end of the testing period, they will be given the Praziquantel treatment that should kill the parasites. And if it shows that healthy young people can resist the parasite it might be proof that we have an easy to make and cheap way to test vaccines against schistosomiasis.
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