wrote:
> Tropical disease diagnosed in La.
> By MIKE DUNNE
> Advocate staff writer
> Published: Jan 21, 2007
>
> http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/5279411.html
>
>
> ON THE INTERNET Patricia Dorn's chagas Web site is:
> http://chn.loyno.edu/biology/bios/do...sresearch.html.
>
> Centers for Disease Control chagas information:
> http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasi...as_disease.htm.
>
> A Loyola University researcher has found in Louisiana a human case of
> an insect-spread disease that is rare in the United States but infects
> as many as 12 million people in Central and South America.
>
> It was found in a woman who lives in a rural part of the New Orleans
> metropolitan area in a house without air conditioning that offered easy
> access for the bugs that carry a parasite that causes the disease. It is
> just the fifth confirmed case of chagas (pronounced SHA-gas) disease
> spread by an insect bite in the nation. Five other cases have been
> blamed on infected organ transplants or blood infusions.
>
> The infection can cause heart disease decades after the first bite.
>
> "I think the people's natural reaction is alarm. Here's this tropical
> disease showing up in Louisiana," said Patricia L. Dorn, an assistant
> professor of biology at Loyola. She said she and others specifically
> asked State Epidemiologist Dr. Raoult Ratard whether chagas might be a
> public health threat and he said no.
>
> However, because it is so endemic south of the border with Mexico and
> there are so many immigrants from Central and South America now in the
> United States, the nation's blood supply will soon be screened for the
> disease, Dorn said.
>
> Only 20 to 30 percent of those bitten by infected bugs will develop
> chagas disease, Dorn said.The woman who was confirmed as a chagas
> patient was living in a very open house. They have chosen to live with
> nature, Dorn said, but most people are not living in the types of homes
> that would invite the bugs in. The bugs don't have ready access.
>
> The woman showed no symptoms at all. She had been bitten by a lot of
> bugs and had called in an exterminator, who found the problem was a
> small insect species, triatomines, also known as the kissing bugs.
>
> The bugs enter homes at night and usually bite people on the only part
> of their body often exposed when they are sleeping the face, hence the
> name kissing bug.
>
> The bugs feed on blood, like mosquitoes, and often defecate shortly
> after eating, dropping the parasite they carry in their bodies on to the
> victim face. Scratching and rubbing the bite can push the parasite into
> the wound or into the mouth, nose or eyes, where it can get into the
> blood stream and infect someone. It is also possible to ingest the
> parasites in food or drink contaminated by the bugs.
>
> Once the exterminator told the woman her home was infected with kissing
> bugs, she then did some Internet research and realized she may have been
> infected with chagas. She contacted health officials, including Dawn
> Wesson of the Tulane University School of Heath and Tropical Medicine.
> Wesson knew Dorn specialized in researching the disease and worked with
> Dorn on the case.
>
> Chagas is found in animals that also has been bitten by the bugs. It has
> been present in animals in the United States for thousands of years,
> Dorn said. In
> Louisiana, studies done more than a decade ago showed about 40 percent
> of the opossums and armadillos in Louisiana carried the parasite and 2
> percent to 5 percent of the dogs also were carriers.
>
> Dorn said more recent work by LSU School of Veterinary Medicine
> researcher Trixia Nieto showed 20 percent to 30 percent of dogs in the
> Atchafalaya Basin area are infected with the parasite and the
> disease, Dorn said. That is one of the several hot for the parasite
> around the state,Dorn said she recently read where 100,000 to 650,000
> people in the United States, mostly natives of Central and South
> America, are believed to be infected with chagas.
>
> The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported the bugs are found in
> houses made from materials such as mud, adobe, straw, and palm thatch.
> During the day, the bugs hide in crevices in the walls and roofs. During
> the night, when the inhabitants are sleeping, the bugs emerge.
>
> Two recent cases resulted from organ transplants in Los Angeles, Dorn
> said. Pilot programs to screen blood supplies showed that in Los
> Angeles, one in 7,500 units of blood was tainted with the disease and in
> Miami one unit in 9,000 units of blood was infected by chagas,
