Researcher, instructor, and parasitologist from UP Diliman Raffy Fornillos uplifts awareness about schistosomiasis during his news conference on July 13 in Palo National High School.
Fornillos primarily tackled to the staffers and school paper advisers of the school’s publication The Cradle and Ang Duyan what causes schisto, how to prevent it, and its effects.
“It’s a parasitic disease and it infects hosts usually humans and it causes a lot of complications,” said Fornillos.
He also added that Filipinos should gain more knowledge about this disease for Philippines is carrying the most harmful specie of schistosoma which is Schistosoma japonicum which is the second deadliest disease in the world after Malaria.
“It does not only enter the body through open wounds,” he said clarifying the misconceptions, “its head has enzymes that has the ability to penetrate the skin even when it’s intact as fast as 10 seconds.”
Once it enters your body and inhabits your blood vessels, a female and male parasitic worms will eventually mate forever producing 400-1,000 eggs in your body which will be transported to others parts of your body through blood circulation.
“If an egg is deposited to your brain which we call cerebral schistosomiasis, the host will start having seizures,” said Fornillos.
There are ways how to diagnose if a person has schisto and that is through the host’s stool and blood.
“We can hardly say if a person is already infected…a host can die if not treated immediately,” Fornillos added.
As the saying goes “prevention is better than cure,” Fornillos shared how to prevent a host from having the disease by not stepping on warm waters such as rivers, swaps, ponds, etc., improving sanitations by using toilets, and raising awareness.
“If a person has schisto, he or she must take proper medications as soon as possible to not experience complications,” he said.
Apart from it, raising awareness and disseminating proper information to the public according to Fornillos is an important public health intervention to control schisto.
The Sentinels 