Development of a rapid and highly sensitive nucleic acid-based diagnostic test for schistosomes, leveraging on identical multi-repeat sequences.

Introduction: Schistosomiasis (Bilharzia), a neglected tropical disease caused by parasites, afflicts over 240 million people globally, disproportionately impacting Sub-Saharan Africa. Current diagnostic tests, despite their utility, suffer from limitations like low sensitivity. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) remain the most common and sensitive nucleic acid amplification tests.