Brazil research group produces first vaccine against Schistosomiasis

Second highest number of cases for a parasitic disease worldwide after Malaria / Close to 200 million / Brazil, Saint Lucia, Suriname and Venezuela
The vaccine was developed by researchers from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), a medical research center under the Ministry of Health, sources with the state in a press conference in Rio de Janeiro. The human clinical trials of the vaccine demonstrated its safety and efficacy, as Fiocruz.The tests were performed on twenty volunteers, who were immune to the contagion of the disease, and confirmed the potential of the drug, whose efficacy has already been tested in laboratory animals. Schistosomiasis, which was formerly known as bilharzia, is a parasitic disease caused by flatworms of the genus Schistosoma. Read Article

Schistosomiasis (also known as bilharzia, bilharziosis or snail fever) is a parasitic disease caused by several species of trematodes (platyhelminth infection, or “flukes”), a parasitic worm of the genus Schistosoma. Snails serve as the intermediary agent between mammalian hosts. Individuals within developing countries who cannot afford proper sanitation facilities are often exposed to contaminated water containing the infected snails. Wikipedia