[Schistosoma haematobium among immigrants consulting in municipal free clinics in Paris in 2003].

The "Consultations de Diagnostic et d'Orientation" (CDO) are free medical consultations for precarious populations, proposed by the Health Department of Paris. More than two-thirds of the CDO patients come from Sub-Saharan Africa. Schistosoma haematobium (SH) is one of the most frequent infectious diseases detected within CDO. More than a thousand people have consulted for the first time in CDO in 2003 in one of the municipal free Clinics which proposes this service. Parasitologic test of urine has been performed among 220 patients and found 24 positive results: viable eggs of SH (10.8%). All 24 patients are male, most of them are under 35 years-old and come from the region of the Senegal River that lies in the junction of Mali, Senegal and Mauritania. We want to remind physicians in non-tropical setting to think of SH when they see a patient originating from Africa. To ask him if he presents haematuria and if not, to prescribe a parasitologic test of urine. If all patients from endemic regions had undergone this screening in 2003, we would have detected about 20 more cases of SH. If treated early enough, it could avoid severe uronephrological complications, which are rare but represent a high health care cost (bladder tumor, renal failure).