Schistosomiasis and climate change

Abstract

In 2014, a group of German and French tourists with no history of travel to tropical or subtropical countries were diagnosed with urogenital schistosomiasis, a debilitating parasitic disease that affects more than 200 million people in South America, Asia, and particularly sub-Saharan Africa. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control eventually tracked 120 cases of Schistosoma infection that were acquired in summer 2013 (and seven more, between 2015 and 2016) by people swimming in the Cavu River in Corsica. This French Mediterranean island is a popular summer destination for tourists from all over Europe. Until then, Corsica had been considered outside the geographic range of schistosomiasis transmission because of the near freezing temperatures of inland waters in the winter.