Abstract
The parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes Chagas' disease, is typically transmitted through a cycle in which vectors become infected through bloodmeals on infected hosts and then infect other hosts through defecation at the sites of subsequent feedings. The vectors native to the southeastern United States, however, are inefficient at transmitting T. cruzi in this way, which suggests that alternative transmission modes may be responsible for maintaining the established sylvatic infection cycle. Vertical and oral transmission of sylvatic hosts, as well as differential behavior of infected vectors, have been observed anecdotally. This study develops a model which accounts for these alternative modes of transmission, and applies it to transmission between raccoons and the vector Triatoma sanguisuga. Analysis of the system of nonlinear differential equations focuses on endemic prevalence levels and on the infection's basic reproductive number, whose form may account for how a combination of traditionally secondary infection routes can maintain the transmission cycle when the usual primary route becomes ineffective.
Highlights
The protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, known principally for causing Chagas’ disease throughout Latin America, is found in mammalian hosts and insect vectors from the United States south to Argentina and Chile
While transmission by blood transfusion has become a concern in urban areas, including in the United States, where many people have visited areas of Latin America at risk for Chagas’ disease infection, transmission in rural areas remains linked to the sylvatic transmission cycle in which the parasite is maintained
Numerous field and laboratory studies have been published on different aspects of the sylvatic transmission cycle for Trypanosoma cruzi in the United States, but much remains unknown, especially as regards the rates at which oral and vertical transmission occur in hosts, as stercorarian and bloodborne transmission driven by vector feeding has historically been the focus of study
Summary
The protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, known principally for causing Chagas’ disease throughout Latin America, is found in mammalian hosts and insect vectors from the United States south to Argentina and Chile.
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