Blood-sucking ‘kissing bugs’ have now carried a deadly parasite across 32 US states, the CDC warns, with hundreds of thousands of people likely already infected with the parasitic disease Chagas without realizing it.
Only 29 confirmed infections were reported in the US between 2000 and 2018. The CDC is urging authorities to reclassify the disease as endemic in the US, in the hope of increasing awareness and enabling more people to receive timely treatment.
“Most people living with Chagas disease are unaware of their diagnosis, often until it’s too late to have effective treatment,” warns infectious disease epidemiologist Judith Currier from the University of California, Los Angeles.\
Related: Rare, Flesh-Eating Parasite Confirmed in US in Concerning Development
Left untreated, this parasite (Trypanosoma cruzi) can slowly damage the heart or other organs in up to 30 percent of infections.
So called for their tendency to bite human faces, kissing bugs are flat-bodied, inch-long insects found throughout the Americas. Also known as conenose or vampire bugs, the tiny arthropods feed on blood, transferring T. cruzi in their feces.
Up to 8 million people are infected with the protozoan parasite globally, mostly in Latin America, but as temperatures warm, the kissing bugs’ favorable environments are expanding. About half the bugs carry the Chagas parasite.
“With global warming, there’s concern among scientists that the borders for where endemic infections occur are shifting northward,” says infectious diseases physician Joanna Schaenman.
Lack of data means this trend has yet to be confirmed, but the new CDC report argues the high occurrence of Chagas in dogs and its continued presence in wildlife indicate the disease is well established in the US.
Pets and wildlife act as reservoirs for the disease, University of Florida infectious diseases scientist Norman Beatty and colleagues caution. The parasite can also be contracted through contaminated food, blood products, or organ donations. Once infected, mothers can pass the parasite on to their unborn babies.
While many people experience no symptoms after infection, some can develop severe eyelid swelling, as well as fever, fatigue, body aches, headache, loss of appetite, diarrhea, and vomiting.
If Chagas disease is not discovered and treated within a two-month acute phase, the parasite can settle into an infected person’s heart and digestive muscles and cause digestive, cardiac, and nervous system damage.
“The disease is definitely underdiagnosed,” cardiologist Salvador Hernandez told Susanne Rust at the Los Angeles Times. “If we screened for it and caught it early, most patients could be cured. The problem is we don’t, and people end up dying or requiring terribly expensive care.”
Meanwhile, doctors suggest wearing insect repellent, sealing cracks around windows and doors, and keeping clutter like woodpiles away from home to reduce your chance of encountering kissing bugs.
This research has been published in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Source link
