US health authorities are on alert as cases of Chagas disease, originating from South America, are increasingly being detected in the United States.
Advertisement What are the symptoms of Chagas disease?
How can Chagas disease be treated?
Both medications, however, can cause severe side effects and are not yet officially approved for treatment of the Chagas disease in the EU, for example.
How to protect against Chagas disease?
A growing number of South American-sourced cases of Chagas disease are being found in the US, putting US health officials on high alert. At least eight states have now reported cases.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers are now on the verge of classifying the infectious disease as endemic, which denotes that it occurs frequently within a region or community.
This is a wake-up call as well as a medical formality: the illness would no longer be viewed as an imported tropical disease but rather as a persistent health risk in the United States.
Monitoring, research, and treatment would all be significantly impacted by the proposed classification.
disease spread by insect bites.
Trypanosoma cruzi, a parasite present in many predatory bug species, is the disease’s vector. The insect was given the moniker “kissing bug” because it frequently bites people who are sleeping in the face, especially the thinner areas like the lips oreyelids.
It is the bug’s excrement that contains the pathogen, not the bite itself, that poses a threat. The parasite enters the body through eye contact or wound scratches. Less commonly, infections are contracted through organ transplants, blood transfusions, or mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy.
WHO warns of the danger of neglect.
Carlos Chagas, a Brazilian physician, named the illness after him after he made the discovery in 1907. Chagas is no longer regarded as a tropical exotic illness. Through international trade routes, migration, and blood transfusions, Chagas also made its way to North America and Europe. Estimates place the number of infected individuals in the US at several hundred thousand and Spain at about 6,000.
The World Health Organization estimates that the pathogen infects over seven million people worldwide and causes about 10,000 deaths annually. The WHO refers to the illness as a “neglected disease” because it is especially common in the impoverished areas of Latin America. The potentially fatal “disease of the poor” is now gaining more international attention as a result of recent data from the US.
How does Chagas disease manifest itself?
Two stages make up the infection. Many afflicted people experience no symptoms in the initial weeks or months following infection. Some people experience vague symptoms like fever, exhaustion, or swellings near the wound. Eyelid edema is a painless, unilateral swelling of the eyelid that frequently coexists with conjunctivitis. The parasite stays in the body after that, but those symptoms typically go away again.
It can take years for the chronic phase of the infection to manifest after a lag period. There are major repercussions for this. There are documented cases of myocarditis, chronic heart failure, or cardiac arrhythmia in addition to pathological colon and esophageal enlargement. These complications can arise in as many as 30% of infected individuals.
Without treatment, the disease can be fatal, according to the WHO, especially for infants, young children, and those with compromised immune systems.
How can one treat Chagas disease?
The parasite can be found in the blood under a microscope during the acute phase. The most crucial diagnostic technique in later stages is antibody testing.
There is currently no vaccine. Two antiparasitic medications that are especially useful in the acute stage of the disease are the foundation of treatment: benznidazole and nifurtimox.
However, both drugs have the potential to have serious adverse effects, and they are not yet formally authorized in the EU to treat Chagas disease, for instance. Usually, the medications can only be given during inpatient treatment in the United States. Thus far, the disease can hardly be prevented; in chronic cases, the therapy only reduces the symptoms.
It can also infect pets and wild animals.
Humans are not the only victims that are sought after; other significant hosts include dogs, cats, rats, armadillos, and opossums.
There is now a growing number of reports of infected dogs, especially in Texas and California, suggesting that the pathogen is already widely distributed in the southern United States.
How can one prevent Chagas disease?
Strict insect protection is advised by experts to avoid complications. In impacted areas, insecticide-treated nets, wall sealing, and targeted pest control can be beneficial.
Veterinarians prescribe medications for pets that also work against ticks and fleas. To avoid infection from blood transfusions, blood donors are now regularly tested for the pathogen in many nations.
Originally, this article was written in German.
