Workshop: Female Genital Schistosomiasis (FGS)

How does Schistosomiasis affect an estimated 56 million women and girls?

Schistosomiasis, is a waterborne neglected tropical disease of poverty with over 450 million people living at-risk. The parasite infects both the urinary and genital track in infected individuals. The urinary signs and symptoms are most prominently recognized, with bloody urine often being the first sign of infection and most often what is described in medical training.

What is frequently not recognized is that this parasite also affects the genital track. Female genital schistosomiasis (FGS), remains underreported, under- and misdiagnosed and largely untreated.

FGS has been described as the one of the most neglected sexual and reproductive health issues in sub-Saharan Africa with an estimated 56 million women and girls infected.

• FGS most affects women and girls living in vulnerable circumstances in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• Women living with FGS are at greater risk of HIV infection and poor sexual and reproductive health.
• Yet, FGS is typically not part of standard medical training.
• Health professionals are often not familiar with FGS, leading to misdiagnosis and improper treatment with grave implications for women’s sexual and reproductive health.

This workshop will be a novel, online training, the first of its kind offered to health professionals for FGS that will use the Foundation’s unique peer learning methodology. It will:

• offer state-of-the art expertise from some of the world’s most experienced FGS practitioners, using an evidence-based package of interventions to help you learn with and from your peers;
• help you integrate FGS into your practice by improving your ability to assess risk factors, prevent, diagnose, and manage FGS;
• encourage you to consider why and how you should advocate for action to reduce the suffering of women and girls due to FGS.

If you are a health professional who performs pelvic exams, this workshop will help you:

• recognize FGS risk factors and symptoms;
• differentiate FGS from other diseases with similar symptoms such as sexually transmitted infections or cervical cancer; and
• practice how to diagnose, treat, and record FGS based on best global guidance.

If you are a health professional who does not perform pelvic exams, this workshop will help you:

• recognize FGS risk factors and symptoms;
• differentiate FGS from other diseases with similar symptoms such as sexually transmitted infections or cervical cancer;
• practice identifying women and girls at risk of FGS; and
• practice referring women and girls at risk of FGS for proper diagnosis and treatment.

The Female Genital Schistosomiasis Competency Framework

This workshop is aligned with the Female Genital Schistosomiasis Competency Framework 

• This framework provides a consensus view on what health professionals need to be able to know and do to diagnose, treat, and prevent FGS.
• It establishes the competencies that are required to be considered trained in FGS at various levels in the health system in endemic settings.
• It was developed through a virtual interactive workshop conducted by the Bridges to Development and The Geneva Learning Foundation in close collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) Department of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD).

Confidentiality and data protection

This initiative uses the Privacy by Design approach. This means that we think of privacy implication before offering a course, we don’t ask for information we don't need, and we protect the information you share. We take pride in treating our learners’ privacy the way we would like to be treated, as individuals. We will treat your information with respect.

Honor code

The Geneva Learning Foundation’s Scholar communities are devoted to learning and the creation of knowledge. We view integrity as the basis for meaningful collaboration. We thus hold honesty – in the representation of our work and in our interactions – as the foundation of our community.

Members of each Scholar community commit themselves to producing course work of integrity – that is, work that adheres to the scholarly and intellectual standards of accurate attribution of sources, appropriate collection and use of data, and transparent acknowledgement of the contribution of others to their ideas, discoveries, interpretations, and conclusions. Cheating on assignments or projects, plagiarizing or misrepresenting the ideas or language of someone else as one’s own, falsifying data, or any other instance of dishonesty violates the standards of our community, as well as the standards of the wider world of immunization.

Scholar course participants are required to adhere to a strict Honor Code. Violation of the Honor Code may result in removal from the course, loss of certification (including prior Scholar certificates), and notification of your employer.

Research and evaluation

The Geneva Learning Foundation and its partners may review projects developed by Scholars and may consider some of them for use in their communication, advocacy and training effort. You will be asked for consent in your application.

Learners may also be invited to participate in research and evaluation by the Geneva Learning Foundation and its partners. Participation in this research is completely voluntary, and you may stop taking part at any time. In cases where learners do not consent, no learner data will be collected. Participation or non-participation will have no effect on assessment of your performance in the course or your present or future relationship with the organizations involved.