Environmental RNA improves detection and surveillance of schistosomiasis transmission.

Environmental RNA assays detect and quantify Schistosoma mansoni miracidia and cercariae from water, and field testing at six endemic sites in Brazil shows eRNA outperforms eDNA for cercariae detection.

• Why it matters: Schistosomiasis eradication is limited by environmental diagnostics that cannot distinguish infectious parasite life stages, and current eDNA methods miss stage-specific transmission risk.
• What they did: The study developed life stage-specific transcript targets and highly specific ddPCR assays for miracidia and cercariae, validating accurate detection and quantification in laboratory experiments and comparing performance in field sites.
• The result: eRNA and eDNA had similar analytical LOD, but eRNA showed enhanced organism-level detectability and longer signal persistence, and at six Brazilian sites it detected S. mansoni cercariae better than eDNA and conventional snail surveys.