Seasonal temperature fluctuation and snail adaptive behaviors yield insights into the dynamics and distribution of schistosomiasis in Africa

The complex relationship between temperature and schistosomiasis, an environmentally mediated neglected tropical disease affecting 250 million people globally, with hyperendemicity mostly in Africa, is poorly characterized. Here, we explored how seasonal temperature fluctuation affects the persistence, dynamics, and geographic distribution of schistosomiasis in Africa. We used a temperature-sensitive, mechanistic model of schistosomiasis dynamics that accounts for the adaptive behaviors of intermediate snail hosts and derived the disease’s thermal response curve for different patterns of seasonal temperature fluctuations. Changing the amplitude of seasonal temperature fluctuations can influence both the thermal optimum and critical thermal thresholds which imply accurately drawing the thermal response curves requires accounting for seasonality in addition to mean annual temperature. Moreover, our simulations can reproduce the documented persistence of schistosomiasis at locations with strong seasonal temperature fluctuations and mean annual temperatures near or above the critical thermal maxima for snail hosts only when snail adaptive behavior (e.g., aestivation, movement into cooler depths or shade) is included in the model. These results suggest that future climate change impacting the amplitude and timing of these fluctuations will likely alter the future geographic distribution of schistosomiasis in African regions. Our work demonstrates that a comprehensive understanding of schistosomiasis and, potentially, other environmentally mediated diseases in Africa, necessitates the inclusion of seasonal temperature fluctuations and host behavioral adaptations in process-based mechanistic models.