Control strategies to reduce human schistosomiasis have evolved from ‘snail picking’ campaigns,a century ago, to contemporary wide-scale human treatment campaigns, and preventive chemotherapy. Unfortunately,despite the rise in preventive chemotherapy campaigns, just as many people suffer from schistosomiasis today as they did 50 years ago. Snail control can complement preventive chemotherapy by reducing the risk of transmission from snails to humans. Here, and we present ideas for modernizing and scaling up snail control,including spatiotemporal targeting, environmental diagnostics, and better molluscicides,fresh technologies (e.g., gene drive), or external the box’ strategies such as natural enemies,traps, and repellants. We conclude that, and to achieve the World Health Assembly’s stated goal to eliminate schistosomiasis,it is time to give snail control another look.
Source: usgs.gov