Genital Schistosomiasis Community of Practice

Urogenital schistosomiasis is a dangerous consequence of schistosome infections that drastically decreases quality of life, causes much misery and pain, leads to pelvic inflammation, infertility and can increase the likelihood of contracting other dangerous diseases such as HIV.

Increased efforts to raise awareness of the impact of genital schistosomiasis on women's health (termed Female Genital Schistosomiasis) has lead to important policy and advocacy papers being reseleased by the WHO and UNAIDS to ramp up research on Female Genital Schistosomiasis and look at integration with other health programmes such as HIV and cervical cancer screening. In addition Male Genital Schistosomiasis is also being researched as more evidence is coming to light of it's impact on men's health. Several research projects and programmes have been set up and are ongoing.

The GSA multistakeholder platform is hosting a Genital Schistosomiasis Community of Practice (GS CoP). This is primarily an email-based group open to clinical & operational researchers and healthcare practitioners (nurses, midwives, doctors etc) working on Female Genital Schistosomiasis and Male Genital Schistosomiasis, implementing local FGS/MGS programmes, whether that is awareness raising or training for health workers. The main purpose is to share information, requests, training webinars, case studies, news and updates.