Also known as The Chagas Disease

This video give a real quick overview of the Chagas disease. We hope you will take a look at this short 9 minutes video to have a quick understanding of Chagas disease before reading the other posts to find out more details and information of Chagas Disease.

Recently I have read an article, titled: "More Than Ebola, Other Tropical Diseases Pose Growing Threat to U.S." by Katherine Hobson for National Geographic (1). The article reminds us that although ebola has recently become a hot topic, there are actually a handful of other tropical diseases that pose a greater threat should we allow them to gain a foothold in local insect populations and one of these diseases is the Chagas Disease.

The Chagas Disease or scientifically: American Trypanosomiasis, is a parasitic disease that can be commonly transmitted through an insect vector, or directly from an infected beings’ blood. The disease is named after the Brazilian Carlos Chagas who discovered the disease in 1909, and is a disease that used to be only found in the Americas.(2) However with technological advancements and improved population mobility, it can now be found in many European and Western Pacific countries(3)

Insect vectors such as kissing bugs* help to transmit the disease in a disgusting manner: They bite people’s faces at night (usually around the mouth) and leave poop behind. The parasite known as Trypanosoma cruzi, in the bug’s faeces and enters the victim’s body through the bites or via the eyes or mouth.(1) That being said, the parasite can also go from mother to child and through contaminated blood and organ donations. That being said, blood supply has been screened for T.cruzi since 2007. (1)

*Kissing bugs are bloodsucking North American assassin bugs that are members of the Triatomina, a subfamily of reduviidae. They usually give a painful bite to the face of the victim. (1)

The kissing bug (Triatoma dimidiata) spreads Chagas disease by biting people's faces while they sleep and leave infected feces behind. (1) 

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN CANCALOSI


(The Life Cycle of the parasite)

This video will better explain and show the process of the cycle of the parasite where it show how the kissing bug transmits the Trypanosoma cruzi parasite to human and cause Chagas disease.

References:

(1) http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/11/141119-ebola-dengue-chagas-chikungunya-tropical-diseases-health/ (Picture and Article)

(2) http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/chagas/

(Obtained information of how it was named at first)

(3) http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs340/en/

(4)http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/chagas/biology.html (Diagram)