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Chagas disease is caused by a parasite. It is common in Latin America but not in the United States. Infected blood-sucking bugs, sometimes called kissing bugs, spread it. When an infected bug bites you, usually on your face, it leaves behind infected waste. You can get the infection if you rub it in your eyes or nose, the bite wound or a cut. The disease can also spread through contaminated food, a blood transfusion, a donated organ or from mother to baby during pregnancy.
If you notice symptoms, they might include
These early symptoms usually go away. However, if you don't treat the infection, it remains. Later, it can cause serious intestinal and heart problems. Medicines can kill the parasite, especially early on. You can also treat related problems. For example, a pacemaker helps with certain heart complications.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
'''Chagas disease''' (also called ''American trypanosomiasis'') is a mammalian disease occurring only in the The Americas. It is caused by the protozoan ''Trypanosoma cruzi'', one of the kinetoplastid flagellates, transmitted to humans in most cases by insects of the subfamily Triatominae (Family Reduviidae) known in the different countries as assassin bug, vinchuca, kissing bug, chipo, barbeiro, etc. Common triatomine vector species for trypanosomiasis belong to the genera Triatoma, Rhodnius, and Panstrongylus. The most common transmitting species are ''Triatoma protracta'' and ''Triatoma infestans''. ''The disease causing agent is (closely but genetically distant) related to that of African sleeping sickness, although the assassin bug vector is not related to the tsetse fly, which carries African sleeping sickness.''
The Bloodsuckers' Rosegarden - Information on the kissing bug Triatoma infestans, a vector of Chagas disease from South America.
Chagas Disease - Information from the World Health Organization.
Trypanosoma cruzi (Chagas' Disease) - Images of the causative parasite and brief information about the disease.
Division of Parasitic Diseases - Chagas Disease - Detailed information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
The Kiss of Death: Chagas' Disease in the Americas - A study of the disease by Dr. Joseph Bastien.
Chagas Disease Research Program - Debasish Chattopadhyay's Structural Biology Laboratory is studying the DHFR and PTR enzymes of Trypanosoma cruzi for structure-based design of specific inhibitors of these enzymes. For this purpose, they have determined the crystal structure of substrate and inhibitor complexes of T. cruzi PTR at high resolution.
Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Variation among Triatomine Vectors of Chagas' Disease - Full text article by Daniel E Lyman, Fernando A. Monteiro, Ananias A. Escalante, Celia Cordon-Rosales, Dawn M. Wesson, Jean-Pierre Dujardin, and Charles B. Beard.
MedlinePlus: Chagas Disease - Directory of news, articles, and factsheets.
Chagas Disease Facts - Factsheet with cause, symptoms, risk factors, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.
Chagas' Disease (American Trypanosomiasis) - Brief information about Chagas' and other diseases caused by parasites of the Trypanosomatidae family (leishmaniasis and African sleeping sickness).