More than 260 million people worldwide suffer from schistosomiasis, which is caused by a tiny flatworm commonly found in water supplies. It's a disease of poverty; although it can be prevented and cured, it persists in many parts of the world.

With seed funding from the Tufts Institute for Innovation, a team from Tufts that is taking on in Ghana has been investigating how infrastructure problems and other often-overlooked factors have made this disease so intractable.

Provided by Tufts University