Résumé
Schistosomiasis remains a great public health problem in several tropical and subtropical countries. Recently in Côte d’Ivoire, we have investigated hybrids between S. haematobium and S. bovis in human urine samples. Moreover, S. haematobium x S. mansoni hybrid has recently been identified in a French hospital in a migrant boy originated from Duekoué, western part of the country. The aim of this project was to molecularly characterize Schistosoma mansoni among schoolchildren in Côte d’Ivoire. A cross-sectional study was conducted in two localities of Côte d'Ivoire (Agboville and Duekoué). Stool samples were collected from schoolchildren and examined by Kato-Katz method to identify Schistosoma eggs. Miracidia were individually isolated and stored on Whatman® FTA card. We analyzed miracidia from stool samples using a Cox1 gene multiplex PCR. Nuclear ITS gene has not been analyzed. A total of 661 schoolchildren was included in this study. More boys than girls (61.9% vs. 38.1%) were included and the highest proportion of children was included in Agboville. The overall prevalence of S. mansoni infection was 9.8% (95% CI: 4.8-13.5%). Of the 239 miracidia molecularly analyzed, 166 yielded positive PCR signal (82.5% in Agboville and 17.5% in Duekoué). Only one case of S. haematobium Cox1 has been identified in Agboville. This case should be hybrid S. haematobium x S. mansoni. Our study reports that intestinal schistosomiasis remains prevalent even if the infection rate was low. Only one case of S. haematobium Cox1 was identified, suggesting the presence of S. haematobium x S. mansoni hybrids at very low prevalence.