A new miracidia hatching device for diagnosing schistosomiasis

It is still imperative to develop a parasitological technique highly sensitive for diagnosing schistosomiasis in epidemiological and individual surveys. A simple and cheap hatching device with a collecting container was manufactured and tested under experimental conditions. Twelve Kato- Katz slides were performed as golden standard for comparison. Quantitative results can be carried out by counting miracidia in a plate and parasite load can be calculated ( miracidia/ gram of feces). Statistically significant values were higher in the hatching test. More sensitive results, with statistical significance, were achieved using 1.5 g of feces ( which corresponds to 36 Kato- Katz slides) than by using the Kato- Katz method. Advantages of this technique and its limitations are presented.