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A son stick out in Virginia two yr ago became the known first person in the United States to have acquired Chagas disease from his female parent , according to a newfangled report card that key the case .
The case highlights the need for increase awareness of the disease among wellness tending supplier in the United States , the researchers said . The disease occurs mainly in Latin America , but cases in the U.S. and elsewhere have been increase , mostly due to migration , fit in to the World Health Organization .
Triatomine bugs or kissing bugs are vectors for Chagas disease.
Chagas diseaseis due to the parasiteTrypanosoma cruzi , which is typically channelize to the great unwashed by bites from insect commonly call kissing bugs . Although less usual , the disease can also be impart congenitally , mean from mother to child during pregnancy , as was the case with the Virginia boy .
While the boy ’s pillow slip was the first to be formally documented , it has been reckon that between 65 and 638 cases of congenital Chagas disease come in the United States each class , the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) paper said . That estimate is based on the typical birth rates of woman from regions where Chagas disease is indigenous , and the fact that in about 1 to 5 percent of pregnancy of infected mother , the disease is transmit to the child .
In August 2010 , the female parent , who had lately immigrated to the United States from Bolivia , gave parentage bycesarean sectionwhen her nestling was 29 weeks old . The son had sign of thorniness as well as excess fluid around his nub , abdomen and lungs . The child ’s doctor , who did not love the son had Chagas disease , administered antibiotics for what they believed to be a far-flung bacterial contagion calledsepsis .
Two week after the parentage , the mother revealed she had been narrate in Bolivia during a old pregnancy that she had Chagas disease . After testing her baby boy , the doctors found he too had the parasite in his blood . The boy received a 60 - twenty-four hour period treatment of benznidazole , a drug for Chagas disease , and was cured .
The shell " illustrates that congenital Chagas disease , even when severe , might not be recognized , or diagnosis might be retard because of the deficiency of defining clinical feature , or because the diagnosis is not moot , " today ’s CDC news report say .
Chagas disease is estimated to affect about 300,000 mass in the United States , most of whom immigrate here .
Dr. in the United States should be cognisant of the status so that pregnant women from at - risk orbit for Chagas disease can undergo screening and be identify , the report says . Mothers diagnose with Chagas disease should be treated for the circumstance , but not until after they end up breast - feeding , the paper enounce .
Pass it on : Doctors in the United States should be cognizant of the risk of mother - to - kid infection of Chagas disease .
