During November 30–December 5, 2007, we enrolled a convenience sample of competitors and spectators attending the international Nile Freestyle Festival kayaking event and tourists on commercial rafting trips in Jinja District, Uganda. We administered a questionnaire to collect information about participants’ demographic characteristics, use of praziquantel (the antiparasitic drug treatment for schistosome infection), and exposure to fresh water. Three months after enrollment, we asked study participants who had had a negative or indeterminate result from a blood test for schistosome antibodies at the time of enrollment to complete an Internet-based questionnaire about freshwater exposures, health symptoms, and medical tests or treatments for schistosomiasis since enrollment.
We measured infection by collecting two 5-mL blood samples 3 months apart and testing them for evidence of schistosome antibody seroconversion. We tested for presence of schistosome-specific antibodies using an ELISA assay screening test that is 99% sensitive for
Schistosoma mansoni and 90% sensitive for
S. hematobium (
10). We confirmed FAST-ELISA–positive samples using an
S. mansoni–specific immunoblot to detect species-specific antibody. We tested all samples using an
S. hematobium–specific immunoblot, which is 95% sensitive and 99% specific for each species (
13). We defined a positive test result as positive results by both tests, an indeterminate result as positive by FAST-ELISA but negative by immunoblot, and a negative result as negative by both tests.
We defined study participant exposures from 2 weeks before enrollment until second sample collection by 4 activity categories: no water-contact activity, swimming/wading only, kayaking/rafting only, and swimming/wading plus kayaking/rafting. We defined schistosome antibody seroconversion in participants as either being first-test–negative and second-test–positive, or being first-test–negative and second-test–indeterminate. We compared characteristics between groups using the χ
2 test for categorical data and the Mann-Whitney test for continuous variables (
14). We expressed the risk for infection as the proportion of persons in each activity category who had evidence of schistosome antibody seroconversion and calculated the Mantel-Haenszel χ
2 test for trend (
14). We performed all analyses using SAS version 9.1 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC, USA). The CDC Institutional Review Board and the Uganda Virus Research Institute approved this study.
We enrolled 150 study participants; 2 subsequently withdrew. Thirty-five (24%) participants were not followed up because their first blood test was positive; all of these persons reported previous exposure to fresh water in schistosomiasis-endemic countries. Of the remaining 113 persons eligible for follow-up, 69 (61%) provided a second blood sample. Persons who provided only 1 blood sample were more likely to be younger (p = 0.005) and female (p = 0.03) ().
| Table 1Characteristics of 113 recreational users of the upper Nile River who participated in a study to determine risk for schistosome infection, were eligible for study follow-up, and provided 1 or 2 blood samples, Uganda, 2007* |
Of 69 persons followed up, 23% had fever, 13% cough, 10% skin rash, and 10% abdominal pain; 8% reported prickling skin. None reported physician-diagnosed acute schistosomiasis. Twelve (17%) of the 69 persons with 2 blood samples had evidence of seroconversion. No seroconversions were identified among the 9 persons who reported no water-contact activities. Serologic data suggested that infection occurred in 1 (13%) of 8 reporting swimming/wading only; 4 (15%) of 26, kayaking/rafting only; and 7 (27%) of 26, swimming/wading plus kayaking/rafting ().
| Table 2Proportion of recreational users of the upper Nile River who had schistosome infection, Uganda, 2007* |
Of 106 persons for whom data were recorded, 19 (18%) reported self-medicating with praziquantel while at the kayaking competition. Of the 12 participants with evidence of seroconversion, 6 had data recorded about self-medication, none of whom took praziquantel.
Gary Brunette, Bryan K. Kapella, Isabel McAuliffe, Edward Katongole-Mbidde, Wenkai Li, Nina Marano, Sam Okware, Sonja J. Olsen, W. Evan Secor, Jordan W. Tappero, Patricia P. Wilkins, and Susan P. Montgomery