Relationships between cercarial indices of Schistosoma haematobium, S. bovis and S. curassoni from Senegal and the isoenzyme genotypes of the adult worms.

S. haematobium and S. curassoni appear to consist of three and two G6PDH genotypes respectively whereas only a single genotype has been observed in S. bovis. This genotype corresponds to one of those exhibited by S. curassoni, but the two species may be distinguished using the AcP enzyme system. The antero-dorsal cercarial indices for S. haematobium gave a mean of 0.78 ranging from 0.67 +/- 0.03 to 0.90 +/- 0.11; S. curassoni gave a mean of 1.11, ranging from 1.00 +/- 0.05 to 1.23 +/- 0.14 and S. bovis a mean of 1.30 within the range 1.01 +/- 0.25 to 1.67 +/- 0.18. From these data it is apparent that there is some correlation between antero-dorsal Cl and enzyme genotype: nevertheless the variation in Cl is somewhat greater than that observed in enzyme genotypes. Generally, Cl values lower than 0.90 can be considered to be due to S. haematobium, those above 1.15 to be S. bovis and intermediate values of 0.90-1.15 indicate S. curassoni.