7 to 8m people infected with Chagas disease

About seven to eight million people worldwide are estimated to be infected with Chagas disease, a potentially life-threatening illness caused by the protozoan parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday. The cost of treatment for the disease remains substantial. In Colombia alone, the annual cost of medical care for all patients with the disease has been estimated to be about 267 million U.S. dollars, according to the WHO. WHO said it was to increase networking at the global level and reinforce regional and national capacities, including strengthening world epidemiological surveillance and information systems and promoting the identification of diagnostic tests for screening and diagnosis of infections, etc. Chagas disease is named after Carlos Ribeiro Justiniano Chagas, a Brazilian doctor who first discovered the disease in 1909. It was once entirely confined to the region of the Americas, principally Latin America, but it has now spread to other continents, mainly due to population mobility between Latin America and the rest of the world. It is curable if treatment is initiated soon after infection. Blood screening is vital to prevent infection through transfusion and organ transplantation, according to the WHO.