There are two drugs available, praziquantel and oxamniquine, for the treatment of schistosomiasis. They are considered equivalent in relation to efficacy against "S. mansoni" and safety. Because of praziquantel's lower cost per treatment, and oxaminiquine's lack of efficacy against the urogenital form of the disease caused by "S. haematobium", in general praziquantel is considered the first option for treatment. The treatment objective is to cure the disease and to prevent the evolution of the acute to the chronic form of the disease. All cases of suspected schistosomiasis should be treated regardless of presentation because the adult parasite can live in the host for years.

Schistosomiasis is treatable by taking by mouth a single dose of the drug praziquantel annually.

The WHO has developed guidelines for community treatment based on the impact the disease has on children in villages in which it is common:

- When a village reports more than 50 percent of children have blood in their urine, everyone in the village receives treatment.

- When 20 to 50 percent of children have bloody urine, only school-age children are treated.

- When fewer than 20 percent of children have symptoms, mass treatment is not implemented.

Other possible treatments include a combination of praziquantel with metrifonate, artesunate, or mefloquine. A Cochrane review found tentative evidence that when used alone, metrifonate was as effective as praziquantel.

Another agent, mefloquine, which has previously been used to treat and prevent malaria, was recognised in 2008–2009 to be effective against "Schistosoma".

For many years from the 1950s onwards, vast dams and irrigation schemes were constructed, causing a massive rise in water-borne infections from schistosomiasis. The detailed specifications laid out in various UN documents since the 1950s could have minimized this problem. Irrigation schemes can be designed to make it hard for the snails to colonize the water and to reduce the contact with the local population. Even though guidelines on how to design these schemes to minimise the spread of the disease had been published years before, the designers were unaware of them. The dams appear to have reduced the population of the large migratory prawn "Macrobrachium". After the construction of fourteen large dams, greater increases in schistosomiasis occurred in the historical habitats of native prawns than in other areas. Further, at the 1986 Diama Dam on the Senegal River, restoring prawns upstream of the dam reduced both snail density and the human schistosomiasis reinfection rate.

Schistosomiasis (bilharzia) is a parasitic disease caused by the parasitic flatworm trematodes. Moreover, more than 80 percent of the 200 million people worldwide who have schistosomiasis live in sub-Saharan Africa. Infections often occur in contaminated water where freshwater snails release larval forms of the parasite. After penetrating the skin and eventually traveling to the intestines or the urinary tract, the parasite lays eggs and infects those organs. It damages the intestines, bladder, and other organs and can lead to anemia and protein-energy deficiency. Along with malaria, schistosomiasis is one of the most important parasitic co-factors aiding in HIV transmission. Epidemiological data shows schistosome-endemic areas coincide with areas of high HIV prevalence, suggesting that parasitic infections such as schistosomiasis increase risk of HIV transmission.

Intestinal parasites are extremely prevalent in tropical areas. These include hookworms, roundworms, and other amoebas. They can aggravate malnutrition by depleting essential nutrients through intestinal blood loss and chronic diarrhea. Chronic worm infections can further burden the immune system. At the same time, chronic worm infections can cause immune activation that increases susceptibility of HIV infection and vulnerability to HIV replication once infected.