What You Should Know About the ‘Kissing Bug’ Disease

It is estimated that millions of people worldwide suffer from a chagas disease, a potentially deadly parasitic disease that can be dormant for years after the initial infection.

In the United States, some 280,000 people are among the United States, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but the disease is not officially considered as endemic to the country as in 21 others in the Americas. Public health experts have argued in a report published in this month’s issue of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal that he should be.

The “growing evidence” of the parasites that cause Chagas’ disease “defy this non -endemic label”, wrote the experts, noting that “kissing bugs”, which can transmit the parasite to humans, have been identified in 32 states. The report recognized that the data was “inadequate” to prove that the presence of kisses bugs increases in the United States, but said that bugs are “increasingly recognized due to frequent meetings with humans” and “increased attention to research”.

“Labeling of the United States as non-Endemic non-Chagas perpetuates low awareness and under-declaration,” wrote the experts.

You may have never heard of Chagas disease before. Here is everything you need to know.

How to get Chagas’ disease?

Chagas disease is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma Cruzi. The parasite can be distributed to a person from an insect called the triatomine bug, more familiar under the name of “kissing”, according to the Mayo Clinic. If a kissing insect ingets the blood of an animal infected with the parasite, then the bug can also sink.

Embred the dead insects usually people while they are sleeping, then defecating. Their excrement leave parasites on a person’s skin, and parasites can enter the body of a person via eyes, mouth or an open wound.

Chagas disease does not propagate from one person to another, but other sources of infection can come from the consumption of unsuccessful food which has stool in infected infected infected, obtaining donor blood or a donor organ of a individual infected with the parasite, or to be in a place where there are wild animals infected with the parasite.

What are the symptoms?

Many people who have been infected have no symptoms.

People with Chagas disease can suffer from acute disease and may experience relatively light symptoms that can last weeks or months, including swelling on the infection site, fever, rashes and body pain, among others, according to the Mayo clinic. These symptoms generally dissipate over time, but if the infection is not treated, the disease can persist in the body and even progress towards a chronic phase.

Some people may experience chronic symptoms 10 to 20 years after being infected, according to Mayo Clinic, although the CDC notes that many people do not feel symptoms even in chronic phase. But around 20 to 30% of infected people develop serious symptoms, including a range of heart problems – such as heart failure, irregular heart rate or even death – and digestive problems – such as esophagus or extended colon, which could cause problems to eat or go to the toilet.

In the United States, have the “kissing bugs” been detected?

Various species of kisses insects are most often found in the southern United States, but have also been identified in several Midwest states.

Aboriginal human cases of Chagas’ disease, which means infections acquired in the same region where cases have been reported, have been confirmed in at least 8 states: California, Arizona, Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi and Arkansas, according to the report of the emerging journal of infectious diseases.