The present study was carried out in the permanent water streams of Lumi River, Irrigation Furrow and Lake Jipe in the Taveta area, Coast Province, Kenya during the dry seasons of 1974 and 1975, and the experimental infection was made at laboratory in Japan.
Freshwater snails collected in the Taveta area were as follows :
Biomphalaria pfeifferi (Krauss),
B. sudanica (Martens),
Bulinus globosus (Morelet),
B. tropicus (Krauss),
B. forskalii (Ehrenberg),
Lymnea natalensis (Krauss),
Ceratophallus natalensis (Krauss),
Segmentorbis angustus (Jickeli),
Gyraulus costulatus (Krauss),
Bellamya unicolor (Olivier) and
Melanoides tuberculata (Müller).
B. pfeifferi was commonly found in river and irrigation canal, whereas
B. sudanica only in lake. Natural infection of
Schistosoma mansoni was found in
B. pfeifferi, but not in
B. sudanica. Both the two species were experimentally proved to be suitable intermediate snail hosts of
S. mansoni. Therefore it was indicated that
B. pfeifferi is the host snail of
S. mansoni in the endemic area along river and irrigation canal while
B. sudanica is suspected of playing the role in the transmission of
S. mansoni in lakeshore.
B. globosus was commonly found in irrigation canal. Around 10 per cent of the snails proved to be naturally infected with
S. haematobium on the conditions that many snails occurred. This snail was also experimentally proved to be susceptible to
S. haematobium.
B. forskalii was widespread, but the snail density seemed to be low.
B. tropicus is well known as the not-intermediate snail host of
S. haematobium. Therefore there might be a possibility to contribute only by B. globosus to the transmission of
S. haematobium in this area.
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