Seventeen people have been injected with a devastating parasite in the hope of leading to a life-saving vaccine for one of the devastating diseases in the world.
he people have injected themselves with a parasite that can cause devastating effects like kidney failure, bladder cancer and infertility.
It is a type of parasitic flatworm that enters the body through the skin and can cause devastating health failures, it has been reported.
And the 17 healthy young adult participants volunteered to have 20 male larvae injected into their system as a quick and easy way to test a vaccination as part of a study.
The Netherlands-based study is centered around finding a cure for schistosomiasis, also known as snail fever.
The volunteers were each paid about £870 ($1,200) each and they will host the parasitic worms in their bodies for 12 weeks.
The parasitic disease affects hundreds of millions of people around the world and kills thousands every year.
The larvae can’t reproduce and at the end of the 12-week study, infectious disease physicians at the Leiden University Medical Center will flush the infection and kill any remaining parasites with Praziquantel.
However, Daniel Colley, a schistosomiasis researcher, told Science Magazine he doesn’t believe the Praziquantel treatment is “terribly effective,” as the worms can live in the system for five to 10 years.
Mr Colley warned: “That is a long time to have something as ugly as a schistosome living in your blood vessels, putting out excrement and things.”
The study is the first step in finding a vaccination that could prevent infection.
Researchers must show the vaccine works in order to raise the millions of dollars needed to set up a study in actual affected areas.
The virus is particularly common among sub-Saharan Africa and South America children, also affecting their physical growth and learning ability.
Participants have so far only reported mild rash and minor fever symptoms.
And as a Dutch ethics board signed off on the study, the risk is not thought to be great, according to a New York Times report.
