ABSTRACT
Swimmer’s itch should not be confused with schistosomiasis, which is a serious human disease caused by different species of Schistosomatidae. The parasites causing schistosomiasis can survive and reproduce in humans, whereas those that cause swimmer’s itch cannot. Schistosomiasis is contagious, and most of the 200 million schistosomiasis patients worldwide became infected by consuming water or food contaminated with minute quantities of fecal material from an infected person. Unlike swimmer’s itch, schistosomiasis does not occur in North America, and it will not be covered in this book. Because most species of Schistosomatidae that cause swimmer’s itch use birds for hosts, we will refer to these species as avian schistosomes to distinguish them from the species that cause schistosomiasis in humans.
