Kissing Bugs, who like to bite humans around their lips and faces, as they sleep, are more dangerous than you have ever thought of.
They like to bite humans closer to their lips and faces as they sleep, after which they defecate into the wound with feces that harbor an infectious parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi.
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The parasite then enters the bloodstream and causes Chagas disease, also known as trypanosomiasis.
But according to a new study, published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, infection with Chagas was found to increase the risk of death by two to three times.
“In every age category, people who had Chagas died more than people who didn’t have Chagas. So if you’re infected early in life, you should be treated,” said author Dr. Ligia Capuani, as quoted by CNN.
Capauni explained that diagnosis is a challenge in many parts of Central and South America, where the disease is most prevalent, with people often finding out that they are infected only when they donate blood.
The research team analyzed data from more than 8,500 people who donated blood between 1996 and 2000 and compared mortality among people who tested positive and negative for infection with T. cruzi.
The subjects were followed for up to 14 years.
“People with Chagas had a two to three times higher risk of dying.” said Dr Ester Cerdeira Sabino, co-author of the study.
The leading causes of death among those testing positive related to heart diseases, the most common symptom of an infection.
In the positive group, “there was 17 times the risk of cardio disease,” Sabino shared.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 6 million people are estimated to be infected globally, with up to 30 percent of people chronically infected developing heart issues and 10 percent developing digestive or neurological symptoms.
The CDC estimates that there are 300,000 cases of Chagas in the United States, with most of those contracted in other countries.
Some patients experience acute, sudden symptoms during the first two months of infection, when parasite numbers in the blood are at their peak, including fever, fatigue, rash, diarrhea and occasionally swollen eyelids.
“What the parasite does to the body takes a long time; (it) slowly goes into the heart and destroys it. We have measured accurately the risk of death, (as) a lot of mortality data doesn’t account for
Chagas,” Sabino added.
In the findings, 40 percent of people whose blood tested positive for Chagas disease did not have that infection stated on their death certificate, even when deaths were heart-related.
Sabino and Capuani believe their findings draw attention to a greater impact on health, due to infection.
Two antiparasitic drugs are available to treat infection, benznidazole, and nifurtimox, both of which are almost 100 percent effective if given soon after infection, according to the WHO. But it’s
effectiveness fades the longer someone is infected. Adverse effects also occur in up to 40 percent of patients, and treatment can take up to two months.
There is no vaccine against the disease. The best means of prevention is controlling the triatomine — kissing — bugs that spread it, either by use of insecticides or by improving homes, as the bugs
reside in the walls or roof cracks of poorly constructed homes.
But another means of prevention is treating people early, so they cannot spread the parasite to others, either by the bugs biting them or through blood donations and transfusions.
Sabino told, “Most people who get infected carry on with their lives unaware they were bitten. A lot of mortality data doesn’t account for Chagas, so you underestimate the effect of the disease. It’s still there and causing death.”
Dr. Eric Dumonteil, a Chagas disease researcher at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in the US feels that this study is quite interesting and “has important implications for patient care and treatment.”
But Dumonteil added that the design of this study, looking at past data, makes it difficult to focus in on and compare the mortality rate for non-symptomatic people testing positive for Chagas infection to symptomatic people. It’s also a correlation that has been seen, not direct causation, as patients were not directly followed up.
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“This increase in mortality (shown by the study) is not that shocking. Chagas is often mistaken for flu symptoms and then disappears. It can disappear for years then re-emerge as heart disease,” shared Dr. Alvaro Acosta-Serrano, a parasitologist at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK.
Serrano also believes that more accurate diagnostics are needed to pick up infections in people who carry low levels of the parasite in their blood.
“If we don’t detect it in time, they will continue spreading the disease,” he said.