Community Based Chagas Control Program

Abstract

In 2012, World Health Organization published the first ever Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) Roadmap, entitled “Accelerating Work to Overcome the Global Impact of Neglected Tropical Diseases: A Roadmap for Implementation.” This report brought international attention to Chagas and other NTDs and provided a framework to guide implementation of policies and strategies set out in the Global Plan to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases 2008-2015. Chagas disease, endemic to Bolivia, is considered the third most common parasitic disease globally, after malaria and schistosomiasis. It is estimated that six to seven million persons are infected worldwide. [1] Bolivia has the highest rate of endemic Chagas disease in the Americas. Chagas disease is both a disease of poverty and, like other neglected tropical diseases, poverty promoting. [2] Chagas disease is associated with multiple social and environmental determinants in communities marked by poverty. Salient among the main determinants are poor-quality dwellings, social instability, the combined presence of certain environmental factors, such as the Chagas vectors, mammals that serve as reservoirs of the disease and human exposure, creating the conditions for perpetuating the effective transmission of the infection and its endemicity. These challenges put pregnant women, young children and children with disabilities at especially high risk for contracting Chagas disease. Left untreated, Chagas disease can lead to serious heart, digestive and neurological conditions.