[kach22i]

Just one of many threats on their way, courtesy of climate change.

JUL 24, 2014
Northern Virginia: 'Ground Zero' for Kissing Bug Disease
Northern Virginia: 'Ground Zero' for Kissing Bug Disease - The Atlantic

...............the disease could live in the body for decades without producing any symptoms and could be passed from mother to child................................

The bite itself is painless, and many people never show any signs of the disease. A third of those with Chagas, however, develop heart disease or megacolon, and untreated, they die from what appear to be sudden heart attacks. An estimated 11,000 people lose their lives every year to the disease, according to the WHO..............................

Dr. Rachel Marcus, a cardiologist, believes Northern Virginia could be “ground zero” for Chagas disease, because of the volume of immigrants from Bolivia, where the disease is endemic. In 2012, she gave up her private practice to focus on patients with Chagas disease. If colleagues thought she would never find a patient with a tropical disease near the Beltway, they were wrong......................

According to Dr. Susan Montgomery, who leads the epidemiology team at the CDC, American doctors started to hear about Chagas disease in 2007 when blood banks in the U.S. began screening for it and sending people letters informing them that they had tested positive and should see their physicians. Health care providers started contacting the CDC and they haven’t stopped. In a ranking of the common phone inquiries the CDC receives, “Chagas disease is always number two every single month,” Montgomery said........

Both women are hoping that the CDC and public health departments in Virginia and across the country will do more to encourage testing, especially among immigrants from regions where the disease is endemic. According to Marcus, patients don’t have to start medication right away, but at least they will know that they need to have their hearts monitored frequently.

“We have the right to know if we are sick,” Sanchez adds.

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