Chagas disease: are we there yet?

Abstract

Hotez et al.1 described Chagas Disease as the “new HIV/AIDS of the Americas” in 2012, three years after the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Chagas disease. Three more years have passed: has this description born out? As immigration from Latin America, the traditional locus of Trypanosoma cruzi infections, continues to increase, are care providers seeing more of the disease in emergency rooms or in offices? And what about the blood supply - how safe is it from Chagas disease? And if not, what can we do to guarantee its safety? There have been several excellent clinical reviews on Chagas over the years, including but not limited to the recent Bern paper in NEMJ2 and Rassi’s in Lancet in 20103. Additional studies have emerged that investigate the epidemiology of Chagas outside of South America, in small and large cities, often using transfusion as the vehicle for case diagnosis, and show a higher prevalence than expected4–12. However there has been no review of transfusion studies that covers the best practices in transfusion medicine when confronting this now worldwide pathogen. This is particularly critical today given the geographic and therefore knowledge gap between medicine in traditional Chagas strongholds in the Southern Hemisphere and the disease’s new world in Europe and the United States. This issue of Blood Transfusion addresses this urgent need; beyond giving an up to date, accessible overview of Chagas disease, it combines what we know today about the geography of T. cruzi outside of South America with the best practices of large transfusion centers in securing the blood supply13. Angheben and Colleagues provide an opportunity for readers to become both current on Chagas disease and learn about the different strategies to reduce its transmission.