World Chagas disease Day 2022; April 14th.

 FORUM: "Finding and reporting every case to defeat Chagas disease." World Chagas Disease 2022.

Chagas disease is named after Carlos Ribeiro Justiniano Chagas, a Brazilian physician and researcher who discovered the disease in 1909. In 2022 we are shining a spotlight on Chagas disease, the suffering it causes and are calling for equitable access to health care and services for everyone affected by the disease.

Key facts

 

• About 6–7 million people worldwide, mostly in Latin America, are estimated to be infected with Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease.
• It is transmitted by the triatomine bug (vector-borne), as well as orally (food-borne), through blood/blood products, mother-to-child (congenital) transmission, organ transplantation and laboratory accidents.
• Trypanosoma cruzi infection is curable if treatment is initiated soon after infection. In chronic patients, antiparasitic treatment can potentially prevent or curb disease progression and prevent transmission, for instance, mother-to-child infection.
• Up to 30% of chronically infected people develop cardiac alterations and up to 10% develop digestive, neurological or mixed alterations which may require specific treatment.
• Vector control and other strategies are key methods to prevent Chagas disease in Latin America.
• Blood screening is vital to prevent infection through transfusion and organ transplantation all over the world.
• Detection and treatment of girls and women of child-bearing age is essential, together with the screening of newborns and siblings of infected mothers without previous antiparasitic treatment.

Overview 

Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, is a potentially life-threatening illness caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. About 6­–7 million people worldwide are estimated to be infected with T. cruzi. The disease is found mainly in endemic areas of 21 continental Latin American countries (1), where it has been mostly transmitted to humans and other mammals by contact with faeces or urine of triatomine bugs (vector-borne), known as kissing bugs, among many other popular names, depending on the geographical area.

Distribution

Chagas disease was once entirely confined to continental rural areas of the Region of the Americas (excluding the Caribbean islands). Due to increased population mobility over previous decades, most infected people now live in urban settings and the infection has been increasingly detected in the United States of America, Canada, and many European and some African, Eastern Mediterranean and Western Pacific countries.

Transmission

In Latin America, T. cruzi parasites are mainly transmitted by contact with faeces/urine of infected blood-sucking triatomine bugs. These bugs typically live in the wall or roof cracks of homes and peridomiciliary structures, such as chicken coops, pens and warehouses, in rural or suburban areas. Normally they hide during the day and become active at night when they feed on animal blood, including human blood. They usually bite an exposed area of skin such as the face (hence its common name, kissing bug), and the bug defecates or urinates close to the bite. The parasites enter the body when the person instinctively smears the bug’s faeces or urine into the bite, other skin breaks, the eyes or the mouth.

T. cruzi can also be transmitted by:

• consumption of food or beverages contaminated with T. cruzi through, for example, contact with faeces or urine of infected triatomine bugs or marsupials. This kind of transmission typically causes outbreaks;
• passage from an infected mother to her newborn during pregnancy or childbirth;
• blood or blood product transfusion from infected donors;
• some organ transplants using organs from infected donors; and
• laboratory accidents.