Chagas disease is a tropical parasitic disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi. It is spread mostly by insects known as Triatominae, or \”kissing bugs” The symptoms change over the course of the infection. In the early stage, symptoms are typically either not present or mild. After four to eight weeks, untreated individuals enter the chronic phase of disease. The chronic stage of the disease develops over many years.
About Chagas disease in brief
Chagas disease is a tropical parasitic disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi. It is spread mostly by insects known as Triatominae, or \”kissing bugs” The symptoms change over the course of the infection. In the early stage, symptoms are typically either not present or mild. After four to eight weeks, untreated individuals enter the chronic phase of disease. The chronic stage of the disease develops over many years. Up to 45% of people with chronic infection develop heart disease 10–30 years after the initial illness, which can lead to heart failure. The most common manifestation is heart dysfunction, which occurs in 14% of those with chronic disease. New drugs are under development, and experimental vaccines have been studied in animal models. It’s estimated that 6.2 million people, mostly in Mexico, Central America and South America, have the disease as of 2017, resulting in an estimated 7,900 deaths. Most people with the disease are poor, and most do not realize they are infected. Prevention focuses on eliminating kissing bugs and avoiding their bites. Other preventive efforts include screening blood used for transfusions. As of 2019, a vaccine has not been developed. The disease was first described in 1909 by the Brazilian physician Carlos Chagas, after whom it is named. The symptoms include fever, malaise, headache, and enlargement of the liver, spleen, and lymph nodes. In rare cases, infected individuals develop severe acute disease.
This can cause life-threatening fluid accumulation around the heart, or inflammation of the heart or brain and surrounding tissues. In many cases, the first sign of heart failure is heart thromboolism, or chest pain associated with abnormalities in the microvasculature. Also common in chronic disease is the digestive system enlargement, particularly in the esophagus. People with heart disease often experience heart palpitations due to irregular fainting and sometimes electrocardiogram (ECG) problems. In. many cases the heart’s ventricles become enlarged, which reduces its ability to pump blood. This is the most common sign of Chag as disease. It affects more than 150 types of animals and occurs in many European countries and the U.S. The acute phase typically lasts 4 to 8 weeks and resolves without treatment. Diagnosis of early disease is by finding the parasite in the blood using a microscope or detecting its DNA by polymerase chain reaction. Chronic disease is diagnosed by finding antibodies for T. cruzi in theBlood. It is commonly spread to humans and other mammals by the bite of a kissing bug. It may also be spread through blood transfusion, organ transplantation, eating food contaminated with the parasites, and vertical transmission. It can cause nerve damage, which is called a “chagoma’s sign” if it is on the eyelid, or elsewhere on the skin. In some cases, people develop a swollen nodule at the site of infection.
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This page is based on the article Chagas disease published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
