About twenty years ago, there was a young Brazilian immigrant (illegal I think) who was a client of a crisis pregnancy center I volunteered at, who had Chagas disease and went into heart failure after delivering her baby. The Brazilian community was raising money to send her back to Brazil for a heart transplant when she died.
You can get it from blood or organ transplants and it has been transmitted that way in the US - is now tested for. You can get it from eating the crushed bugs - in fruit pulp or juice. Brazilian OJ anyone? hope it’s sufficiently pasteurized. The kissing bug is now found as far north as Oklahoma and I believe dogs have been infected but not humans here. Anyway very few transmission cases here, nearly all immigration cases.
The rate of new infections has declined in the tropics, with fewer people living in thatch roof housing, or close association with small animals. But there is no vaccine as the trypanosome is genetically very variable, and the treatments have very serious side effects and are not always effective. Nasty beastie. Can give you megacolon or encephalopathy too.
On the plus side, Brazil’s heart surgeons have been forced to come up with some innovative treatments that may be applicable to other cases of heart failure.
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About the crushed bugs in OJ: Interesting. I’ve made it a point for years to buy juice from US producers— mainly Florida, of course. I’d decided that I just did not know what Brazil’s laws were in regard to pesticides. I also decided to buy USA out of principle. I suppose this issue is another good reason.
3rd world disease for a 1st world country.
We can thank LBJ, Reagan, Clinton, Bush, and The Imposter for that!
Man, I just got addicted to this Mexican fruit juice, it’s 35% juice, not like the American crap that is usually no more than 5%. Think I am going to get “chagas” now?
Yick. I didn't know that. Thoroughly nasty disease. Isn't that what some people think killed Darwin?