Home > Chagas disease

It is caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, one of the kinetoplastid flagellates, transmitted to humans by triatomine insects known in the different countries as assassin bug, vinchuca, kissing bug, chipo etc. usually Triatoma protracta.

The human disease occurs in two stages: the acute stage shortly after the infection and is usually mild fever and swelling around the bite area, 10-30 % of those bitten develop the chronic stage which appears after several years. The disease affects the nervous system and heart. Chronic infections result in various neurological disorders, including dementia, damage to the heart muscle, and sometimes dilation of the digestive tract ( megacolon and megaesophagus ). Left untreated, Chagas disease can be fatal.

The disease was named after the Brazilian physician Carlos Chagas who first described it in 1910Events January events January 13 The first live musical radio program. Lee De Forest broadcasts a live performance of Enrico Caruso from the Metropolitan Opera. January 26 ? Seine floods in Paris. February events February 8 The Boy Scouts of America is in but the disease was not seen as a major problem in humans until the 1960sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s Years: 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 Events and trends The 1960s was a turbulent decade of change around. Chagas disease currently affects 16-18 million people, killing around 20,000 annually and with some 100 million at risk of acquiring the disease.

The disease causing agent, Trypanosoma cruzi, is closely related to that of African sleeping sicknessSleeping sickness or African trypanosomiasis is a parasitic disease in humans. Caused by protozoa of genus Trypanosoma and transmitted by the tsetse fly, the disease is endemic in certain regions of Sub-Saharan Africa, covering about 36 countries and 60 m, although the assassin bug vector is not closely related to the tsetse flyThe tsetse fly Glossina morsitans is a fly (order Diptera that eats blood from animals, including humans. The tsetse fly can carry the protozoa human pathogen Trypanosoma brucei which causes African sleeping sickness. Tsetse flies have specialized cells t, which carries African sleeping sickness.

It has been hypothesized that Charles DarwinCharles Robert Darwin ( February 12, 1809 April 19, 1882) was an English naturalist whose revolutionary theory laid the foundation for both the modern theory of evolution and the principle of common descent by proposing natural selection as a mechanism. might have sufferred from this disease as a result of a bite of the so-called Great Black Bug of the Pampas (Triatoma).

See also: achalasiaAchalasia or acalasia is a failure of a ring of muscle (as a sphincter) to relax (completely). It refers most commonly to esophageal achalasia which is a neuromuscular disorder of the esophagus characterized by the reduced ability to move food down the es