source: Science Daily
Chagas disease has been the scourge of the Americas for a very long time. A disease that strikes the poorest people and often results in a painful, horrific death.
The disease is passed on by a bug that is aptly named 'the kissing bug', because it bites people on the lips during sleep and then as it defecates in the wound, thereby passing on a deadly parasite, called Trypanosoma cryzi, which then slowly kills its host in a very painful way.
For decades the disease put fear in the traveler and the indigenous population alike. There is no cure to date for the dreaded disease once it is in its chronic phase.
But now efforts to try and find a solution to the widespread problem seems to have borne some answers.
In central and south America, 15 to 19 million people are believed to be affected by the disease. That indicates a neglect of the problem, probably due to the fact that people in urban areas are less affected. This is indeed a disease of the poor, whose mud huts are no match for blood sucking insects.
Now scientists are trying to stem the disease by studying the insect chiefly responsible for the transmission, the kissing bug, as it is known.
Scientists at Vanderbilt University are also studying how a small molecule called VNI is now able to cure Chagas in mice.
VNI was seen in the laboratory as able to inhibit the enzyme that Trypanosoma employs for cell multiplication. VNI achieved 100% cure rate with no toxic effect.
This discovery breathes new life in the hope of defeating the disease.
The kissing bugs, in addition, are on the move, and have been found in the southern United States, probably introduced in shipments or carried in luggage by travelers, so that the threat is now at the US's door.
In addition, since the parasite is contained in the feces of the bug, contamination of water sources or food, also results in infections of Trypanosoma.
Source: Science Daily/ 2.16.13
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