CHAGAS DISEASE IN THE USA - The new AIDS, also called the "kissing disease" - Over 300,000 Americans have it, but may not know it. They probably caught it in Mexico or South America.

Over 300,000 Americans have already been infected with the potentially fatal 'kissing bug disease' called Chagas

Chagas is being called the new AIDS because of its asymptomatic beginnings that can turn to a fatal end if the disease progresses

Many doctors aren't aware of the prevalence of Chagas and aren't testing people for the disease

It causes heart failure and other deadly complications that by the time they are realized cannot be helped with medicine.

The CDC believes most of the people infected with Chagas got the parasite in Mexico or South America before coming to the U.S.

  Trypanosoma cruzi - kissing bug

Over 300,000 Americans have already been infected with the potentially fatal 'kissing bug disease' called Chagas but U.S. healthcare workers lack of knowledge about the illness is letting many cases of the parasite unnoticed. Some doctors are calling it the 'new AIDS' because of the way it develops.

 

Researchers who gathered on Tuesday at the annual American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene meeting in New Orleans said that if caught early the disease can be cured however sometimes the disease can be asymptomatic and there is a dearth in medication for the condition.

MOSQUITO THAT TRANSMITS YELLOW FEVER, DENGUE, and other tropical diseases, found IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY - Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) afflict 12 million Americans



Yellow Fever Mosquito

A few days ago I posted an interesting article on Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), many of which are affecting millions of Americans.

http://ottersandsciencenews.blogspot.ca/2014/10/the-neglected-tropical-diseases-ntds.html

 

These diseases have neither the media coverage nor the funding of the Ebola virus and other diseases.  But they cause disability, enormous suffering, and can be fatal.  As climate changes in the North American continent, we should expect an increased variety in parasites as well, whether affecting animals, plants and trees, or people.

 

Here is today's article on the Lost Angeles Times about a mosquito that transmit yellow fever, now spotted in LA County

 

Los Angeles Times - new aggressive daytime-biting mosquito capable of transmitting debilitating and possibly deadly viruses has been found in the Los Angeles region, officials announced Wednesday.

 

Known as yellow fever mosquitoes, the insects were found Oct. 7 and 8 in Commerce and Pico Rivera, respectively, according to the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District.  

 

The Aedes aegypti species, which has black and white stripes and grows to about a quarter-inch in size, can transmit dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever -- viruses that can cause painful symptoms including headaches and high fever, officials said.

THE NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES - NTDs - Besides Ebola there are numerous dangerous tropical diseases that don't get enough funding or media coverage - Many of them affect Central America and the southern US - 12 million Americans are already afflicted, and 1 billion world wide.

Mosquito Aedes aegypti transmits dengue  

Neglected Tropical Diseases are caused by lack of clean water, poor hygiene, and parasites that thrive in areas of poverty in areas such as Africa, China, and Central America, among others.   They cause terrible health devastation to a billion people.

 

Those living in the northern hemisphere should be concerned too because of migration from all parts of the world into North America and Europe.

 

NTDs simply lack the global profile of HIV-Aids and malaria, despite killing thousands of people each year.

 

The Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) are a group of parasitic and bacterial infections that affect circa 1 billion people. These diseases are named "neglected" because they persist exclusively in the poorest and most marginalized populations.  NTDs stigmatize, disable and inhibit individuals from being able to care for themselves or their families - all of which promote poverty.   Many of these diseases are fatal.  

 

Examples of Neglected Tropical Diseases:

 

Trachoma is the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness. 

Schistosomiasis is a parasitic disease caused by trematode flatworms. 

Lymphatic filariasis (LF) - elephantiasis - mosquito-borne parasitic disease caused by worms

Also leprosy, sleeping sickness, chagas disease, dengue fever, and more 

 

The Guardian - A huge programme by the World Health Organisation designed to tackle NTDs, but according to Dr Peter Hotez, who is dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, and president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, the rise of NTDs among poor people in Asia and the Americas has gone largely unnoticed. 

 

China, the world’s second largest economy, which has an incredible amount of poverty.  “We’re finding a lot of NTDs in the south-west, in Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, such as intestinal worm infections, and there’s still schistosomiasis and food-borne trematode infections.   Liver fluke and kung fluke are looming very large in northern and southern China.”  

Hotez also singled out northern Argentina, southern Mexico and the southern US as areas where a handful of NTDs are common. He pointed particularly to Texas and the Gulf coast, where researchers are reporting cases of dengue, Chikungunya, Chagas disease and parasitic worm infections such as Cysticercosis or Toxocariasis.

“While immigration is not a zero component, it’s a very modest component,” he said. “It’s actually because Texas and the Gulf coast are at the confluence of poverty, warm climate and the fact that we’ve got the vectors here that transmit the diseases.”

 

Hotez, who estimates that about 12 million Americans have one or more tropical diseases, said he was frustrated at the lack of awareness of NTDs in the US and the refusal to link their prevalence to economic deprivation.

“It’s almost as though we do not want to admit that we have poverty in this country,” he said. “But the truth is that we have 20 million Americans who live in extreme poverty and almost 2 million Americans living on less than $2 a day – and they’re all infected with NTDs.”