Molecular Detection of Schistosomiasis using Real-Time PCR pre- and post-treatment in some regions of Nigeria

Abstract Background Schistosomiasis, a neglected tropical disease, is a major helminth disease in terms of morbidity and mortality that affects more than 200 million people worldwide. This study aimed to use real-time PCR (RT‒PCR) for the detection of Schistosoma sp. DNA in both urine and faeces samples before and after praziquantel (PZQ) treatment, and the results were compared with those of conventional PCR and microscopic detection of schistosome eggs to evaluate treatment efficacy. Methods Both urine and stool samples were collected from three hundred and eighty seven (387) study participants aged between 3 and 25 years before and after (3 weeks and 8 weeks) treatment with PZQ in Dumbi communities, Nigeria. On the treatment day, all participants who tested positive after microscopic examination (29) in the community were treated with a single dose of 40 mg/kg PZQ. DNA was isolated from 50 samples (urine) that tested positive using microscopy in preparation for molecular analysis. Microsoft Excel 2016 and SPSS version 20.0 statistical software were used for data analysis. Results Utilising diagnostic methods, microscopy detected Schistosoma haematobium eggs in 7.5% (29) of the urine samples collected before treatment, whereas RT‒PCR amplified DNA in 39.8% (154) of the same samples, and no eggs were detected in the stool samples analysed. Among the diagnostic methods for 50 samples that were used for comparative analysis, RT‒PCR had the highest positive detection of 80%, followed by conventional PCR (72%), haematuria (64%) and microscopy (58%). Compared with microscopy, RT‒PCR and conventional PCR both provided lower estimates of cure rates. Conclusions The results of this study revealed that RT‒PCR and conventional PCR are significantly more sensitive than microscopy for detecting and evaluating infection incidence, which is an important aspect of epidemiological studies. The RT‒PCR-based detection technique can be especially useful in circumstances of lower intensity or prevalence of infection, a condition for which the parasitological diagnosis shows a well-proven limitation of its sensitivity.