GC: n

S: WHO – http://www.who.int/schistosomiasis/en/ (last access: 25 November 2014); NHS – https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/schistosomiasis/ (last access: 19 November 2024).

N: 1. schistosomiasis (n): 1906, from schistosome (1905), from Modern Latin Schistosoma, from Greek skhistos “divided, cloven” (see schist) + soma “body” (see somato-).

2. Group of chronic disorders caused by small, parasitic flatworms (family Schistosomatidae) commonly called blood flukes. Schistosomiasis is most prevalent in rural communities where hygiene is poor due to poverty or due to the lack of infrastructure to support adequate health care services. The disease is ordinarily contracted by working, bathing, or swimming in water populated by snails that carry the worms.

3. The parasites were first identified as a cause of the disease in the 1850s by Theodor Bilharz, a German pathologist working in Egypt.

4. Parasitoses: schistosomiasis, bilharziasis.

• Schistosomiasis, a chronic worm infection, affects more than 200 million people in the world; several hundred million more live in endemic areas and are at risk of exposure to the parasites. The schistosomes are blood flukes that parasitize the venous channels of the definitive human host; infection is transmitted via fresh water snails.
• B65: code used in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems.

5. Although “bilharziasis” was recommended by a group of experts of the World Health Organization in 1949 as a tribute to Bilharz, it is illogical since the causative organisms are helminths belonging to the genus Schistosoma. Understandably, “schistosomiasis” is still the preferred term of most English-speaking specialists.

Moreover, the term “schistosomiasis” appears to be replacing “bilharziasis” as “Bilharzia” is the former name of “Schistosoma“.

6. Schistomiasis was found also in 71 per cent of bladder cancer patients in the Gold Coast as compared with 1.4 per cent of the population in general. The carcinogenic mechanisms may be related to increased levels of urinary glucuronidase in patients with significant egg loads. Schistosomiasis is associated primarily with squamous carcimona, although these tumours occur also in the absence of infection.

S: 1. Etymonline – http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=schistosomiasis&searchmode=none (last access: 25 November 2014). 2 & 3. EncBrit – http://global.britannica.com/science/schistosomiasis (last access: 25 November 2014). 4. TERMIUM PLUS – https://www.btb.termiumplus.gc.ca/tpv2alpha/alpha-eng.html?lang=eng&i=1&srchtxt=schistosomiasis&index=alt&codom2nd_wet=1#resultrecs (last access: 19 November 2024). 5 & 6. GDT – https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/fiche-gdt/fiche/8404113/schistosomiase, https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/fiche-gdt/fiche/9492533/schistosomiase (last access: 19 November 2024).

SYN: bilharziasis, bilharziosis. (depending on context)

S: GDT – https://vitrinelinguistique.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca/fiche-gdt/fiche/9492533/schistosomiase (last access: 19 November 2024)

CR: infestation, parasite, parasitosis, schistosome.