China will increase resources to contain the spread of
schistosomiasis within the next four to five years and hope to wipe
the disease out in another seven to eight years. Vice Premier Wu Yi
unveiled the targets during last week’s national conference on
snail fever held in Yueyang City, Hunan Province.
Schistosomiasis, or snail fever, is a parasitic disease of the
liver, gastrointestinal tract and bladder. The disease is caused by
a worm, or fluke, which enters a person’s body from infested
polluted water. The larval forms of the parasitic worm live in
freshwater snails.
In the early stages, infected persons experience flu-like
symptoms, with fever, chills, sweating and cough. Patients with
chronic infection may suffer severe damage to bladder, liver,
lungs, bowel wall and nervous system.
The disease was once rampant in China’s southern rural areas.
The country managed to contain it until the huge floods on the
Yangtze River in 1998, when snail fever began to reappear. Wu said
prevention measures have been inadequate, and describes the
situation as grave.
President Hu Jintao also called for coordinated efforts to get
the life-threatening epidemic.
The vice premier presented a package of measures to fight the
disease, including checking the source of infection, cutting off
transmission routes, protecting people susceptible to the disease
and improving monitoring.
She called for efforts to improve awareness and capacity to
prevent infection, transform traditional farming methods and
lifestyles that add to risk, and to identify infected rural
residents and animals and provide them with appropriate medical
treatment.
Efforts should also be made to provide clean water for farmers
and change night soil disposal methods to curb the spread of the
disease.
While carrying out water conservancy and afforestation projects,
local governments should clean up the environment to kill the
oncomelania snails, which are the intermediate hosts of the
flukes.
The vice premier promised free drugs to rural people infected by
the disease as well as people and animals identified as major
groups susceptible to the disease, while providing poverty-stricken
areas with subsidies to buy oncomelania killers.
She also called on scientists to continue their research and
increase international exchange and cooperation so as to make
breakthroughs in the prevention and control of the disease in three
to five years.
(Xinhua News Agency May 24, 2004)