3 ms·

Can someone with better search-fu help me understand how freshwater snails kill humans? Google is only giving me this same blog post.

tokenadult 13y ago
I knew the name of the disease before I started the search, but since you asked for search-fu, I'll mention that I Googled "snail fatal disease," which led to a Wikipedia article[1] and searching the article page for the word "snail" led to the specific section about the disease. The disease name, "schistosomiasis," is of course an even better search term for finding out more information about the disease. AFTER EDIT: using the same word string from your question here, "how freshwater snails kill humans" (NOT searching as a phrase, but as a string of words) on Google does indeed first bring up the Bill Gates blog post, but a few results below the search results show a World Health Organization document on freshwater snails[2] that largely answers the question. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases#Schistosomiasis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases#Sc... [2] http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/resources/vector337to356.pdf http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/resources/vector3...
jcomis 13y ago
The snails harbor a parasitic worm which they pass on to the water supply. The worms then use humans as a host and lay a large amount of eggs in the host. The worms and the eggs themselves cause an enormous strain on the hosts liver, kidneys, digestive, and urinary system. They essentially migrate through the body to get to the liver where they can lay thousands of eggs a day. Most eggs then enter the intestines in order to pass out of the host and back into the water supply to mature in snails and start the cycle over. The real danger is you don't need to drink the water, just come in contact with it. So stepping in a puddle could cause infection. I was just in Colombia and there was a campaign trying to raise awareness on this so I learned a bunch about it. Scary stuff!

tokenadult 13y ago

I knew the name of the disease before I started the search, but since you asked for search-fu, I'll mention that I Googled "snail fatal disease," which led to a Wikipedia article[1] and searching the article page for the word "snail" led to the specific section about the disease. The disease name, "schistosomiasis," is of course an even better search term for finding out more information about the disease. AFTER EDIT: using the same word string from your question here, "how freshwater snails kill humans" (NOT searching as a phrase, but as a string of words) on Google does indeed first bring up the Bill Gates blog post, but a few results below the search results show a World Health Organization document on freshwater snails[2] that largely answers the question. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases#Schistosomiasis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases#Sc... [2] http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/resources/vector337to356.pdf http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/resources/vector3...

jcomis 13y ago

The snails harbor a parasitic worm which they pass on to the water supply. The worms then use humans as a host and lay a large amount of eggs in the host. The worms and the eggs themselves cause an enormous strain on the hosts liver, kidneys, digestive, and urinary system. They essentially migrate through the body to get to the liver where they can lay thousands of eggs a day. Most eggs then enter the intestines in order to pass out of the host and back into the water supply to mature in snails and start the cycle over. The real danger is you don't need to drink the water, just come in contact with it. So stepping in a puddle could cause infection. I was just in Colombia and there was a campaign trying to raise awareness on this so I learned a bunch about it. Scary stuff!