a, DNA targets tested against S. haematobium probes. SH_WT is the target region that probes SH_A1 and SH_B1 are designed to recognise. The corresponding target region for the other related Schistosoma species are indicated as follows: SM_WT (S. mansoni), SR_WT (S. rodhaini), SB_WT (S. bovis), SG_WT (S. guineensis), SC_WT (S. curassoni), SJ_WT (S. japonicum) and Smek_WT (S. mekongi) with sequence variations indicated in red. The ligation junction for the probes is underlined. b, S. haematobium probes are specific for the S. haematobium wild-type target region. Both half probes and the target concentrations were tested at 50 nM. n = 9 (3 replicates per reaction, each reaction split into triplicate runs). Error bars denote standard error of the mean. The sequences of the probes are available in S1A Table.