Schistosomiasis and development

This paper evaluates evidence relating to the belief, long held by tropical health workers, that schistosomiasis control would contribute significantly to economic development. The many attempts to estimate the macro benefits of control in terms of the ‘economic loss’ due to the disease are criticized for their emphasis on aggregate output benefits and for the unrealistic assumptions made in estimating the increment in, and marginal product of, efficiency labour units which might result from control. Micro research has so far failed to establish a clear empirical basis for the assumption that schistosomiasis seriously impairs labour productivity — but this may be attributable to sampling bias resulting in the exclusion of workers with severe disease.