Epidemiology and interactions of Human Immunodeficiency Virus – 1 and Schistosoma mansoni in sub-Saharan Africa

Please see Additional file 1 for translations of the abstract into the six official working languages of the United Nations.Worldwide, HIV-1 infections remain a major public health problem. In 2010, over 31 million adult individuals (>15 years) were living with the disease and new cases of the disease were estimated to be at 2.7 million individuals [1]. The sub-Saharan African region continues to carry the largest proportion of the global disease burden [1]. In 2010, over 68% of global cases of HIV were in sub-Saharan Africa [1]. In this region, an estimated 1.9 million individuals were newly infected with HIV during 2010, comprising about 70% of all new cases of the disease worldwide [1]. However, in the East African region, the HIV epidemic has started to decline and has stabilized in some areas [2]. The national prevalence of HIV varies among countries in the region, from 3% in Rwanda, 5.8% in Tanzania, 6% in Kenya to 6-7% in Uganda [2,3]. The risk factors for HIV transmission in sub-Saharan Africa vary dramatically across sub-populations with different demographic characteristics [4,5]. The key risk factors for heterosexual transmission of HIV in Africa are commercial sex (prostitution), high population mobility, concurrent or multiple partners or number of lifetime sexual partners, residential location (rural versus urban), history of active or passive sexually-transmitted disease and lack of male circumcision [4,5]. Several epidemiological studies have reported vulnerable groups such as female bar workers [6], female commercial sex workers, long-distance truck drivers and their partners [7]. Fishing communities remain at higher risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV, and play a key role in the spread of HIV and in the maintenance of the HIV infection levels in the population [8,9].Schistosomiasis is a chronic, water-borne helminth disease, endemic in Africa for many centuries [10-12]. The current global estimate indicates that 779 million people in 76 countrie