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July 5th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda THURSDAY, July 5 (HealthDay News) — As many as 300,000 people in
the United States may have chronic Chagas disease — mostly spread by
blood-sucking insects — health officials report.
However, the first confirmed U.S. case of transmission from a mother to
a newborn was recently documented, adding to ongoing concern about this
parasitic disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
Most people with Chagas disease in the United States are immigrants
from areas in Latin America, where the disease is endemic, the report
said.
While Chagas is treatable and curable, it often goes unrecognized.
Untreated, the infection is lifelong.
“Only a few people who are infected develop early symptoms,” said Dr.
Anne Moore, a CDC medical epidemiologist. “The vast majority have such
mild symptoms, or no symptoms, that they don’t know they are infected.”
The parasite stays in the blood system and gradually causes disease in
the tissues it affects — and the tissues it likes the most are heart
muscle, Moore said.
“About 30 percent of those infected will develop serious cardiac
disease, which can be fatal,” she explained.
Chagas is spread by triatomine insects, which can carry the parasite
that causes the disease. People become infected when the bug feeds by
sucking blood. The insects are also called kissing bugs because they tend
to bite around the face, Moore said.
While most people who have Chagas are from Latin America and Mexico,
the insects that cause the disease are common across the lower southern,
eastern and western United States, according to the CDC.
Whether the species of these bugs found in the United States carry this
parasite isn’t known, Moore said.
“We really don’t have good information about whether there is a lot of
transmission in the United States — there has been a handful of cases,
but no one is looking, so we don’t have an idea of the magnitude of the
problem,” she noted.
Other, but undiagnosed, cases of mother-infant transmission have likely
occurred in the United States, the report said. In other countries, the
rate of congenital transmission from infected mothers is about 1 percent
to 10 percent.
Two antiparasitic drugs can be used to treat Chagas. “Neither one is
approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but they are available
free from the CDC,” Moore said.
No manufacturer has applied for approval for the drug because there are
only a few cases of Chagas in the United States, she noted.
Moore believes people from Latin America, especially pregnant women,
should be screened for Chagas, particularly those who have lived in rural
areas. Many doctors don’t know about the disease, so they don’t look for
it in these patients, she added.
The report was published in the July 6 issue of the Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report.
The current case involved an infant whose mother had recently emigrated
from Bolivia. The child was diagnosed two weeks after birth when doctors
saw Trypanosoma cruzi parasites in the blood.
The infant was treated and cured with the antiparasitic drug
benznidazole.
Chagas also can be spread through blood transfusions and organ
transplants. In 2006, the American Red Cross began screening blood donors
for Chagas, Moore noted. Chagas can be acquired through food contaminated
with the parasite.
Dr. Marc Siegel, an infectious disease expert, said that “Chagas
disease is a reminder to us that we are part of a worldwide community of
health.”
Chagas affects about 10 million people around the world, said Siegel,
an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New
York City.
“With all of the immigrants we have, Chagas has become more of a
problem, because it can be transmitted from mother to child or through
blood transfusion, not just through an insect,” Siegel said.
This report should alert doctors to look for Chagas in patients with
unexplained heart disease, he said.
“It’s not enough of a problem that we should be worried about it,”
Siegel said. “It’s trending and we have to keep an eye on it.”
More information
For more about Chagas disease, visit the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention.
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