Unusual and Severe Complications of Acute Schistosomiasis in Travelers

Asaf Biber; Neta Petersil; Efrat Naaman; Ami Neuberger; Eli Schwartz

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofac443

Unusual and Severe Complications of Acute Schistosomiasis in Travelers

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2022 Aug 25;9(9):ofac443. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofac443. eCollection 2022 Sep.

Authors

Asaf Biber^{1

2}, Neta Petersil^{3

4}, Efrat Naaman^{4

5}, Ami Neuberger^{3

4}, Eli Schwartz^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ The Center for Geographic Medicine and Tropical diseases, The Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, Israel.
² Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
³ Infectious Diseases Institute, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel.
⁴ The Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.
⁵ Department of Ophthalmology, Rambam Health Care Campus, Haifa, Israel.

Abstract

Acute schistosomiasis (ASC) is a hypersensitivity reaction seen mostly in nonimmune travelers and manifests mainly with fever, urticaria, and respiratory symptoms. We describe unusual severe presentations of ASC in 3 patients, including hip-monoarthritis, peri-myocarditis, and optic neuritis. In all 3 patients, clinical symptoms appeared or worsened after praziquantel administration.

Keywords: acute schistosomiasis; monoarthritis; myocarditis; retinitis; travelers.