CINCINNATI (WKRC) – Health authorities sounded the alarm for a deadly parasitic infection that has already infected eight people, with the insect source being found in 32 states, including Ohio.
The CDC and WHO have been encouraged to officially declare Chagas disease endemic in the United States following the eight infections, per New York Post.
“This is a disease that has been neglected and has been impacting Latin Americans for many decades, but it’s also here in the United States,” said medical epidemiologist Norman Beatty, an expert on the disease, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
The disease’s carrier, known as kissing bugs, are small insects that consume blood from people and animals, particularly around their face (hence the name).
32 states have reports of the bugs being present, including Ohio and Indiana. 12 of them have local cases of only animals being bitten by the bug, and one had a local case of only humans being bitten by the bug. Five states reported local cases of animal and human bites.
Chagas disease begins with “absent or mild and non-specific symptoms” like fevers, headaches, enlarged glands, muscle pain, and chest pain as the parasites flow through the bloodstream, per the World Health Organization’s website. Occasionally, early symptoms could include “purplish swelling of the lids of one eye” or a skin lesion.
The symptoms get much more intense the longer the parasites remain in the body, largely collecting in the heart and digestive muscles.
“One to three decades after infection, up to a third of patients suffer from cardiac disorders and up to 1 in 10 suffer from digestive (typically enlargement of the oesophagus or colon), neurological or mixed alterations,” the website read. “In later years these patients may experience the damage to the nervous system and muscles of the heart and digestive system, leading to cardiac arrhythmias, progressive heart failure, and sudden death, among other clinical manifestations and complications.”
The disease is treatable, but is much more effective in the early stages of infection. According to the Mayo Clinic, the disease may become untreatable if it becomes chronic, at which point the only option is treating symptoms.
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