Latest Chagas disease Stories

Doctors are putting modern medicine to the test to unravel the mystery of the long, painful illness and death of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution.Darwin's ailments were the subject of this year's annual Historical Clinicopathological Conference (CPC) in Baltimore on Friday.  The conference, sponsored by the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs (VA) Maryland Health Care System, is devoted to the modern medical diagnosis of disorders that affected...

Doctors Investigate Long Illness and Death of Scientist Known as 'Father of Evolution' BALTIMORE, May 6, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Now, 200 years after the birth of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, doctors are putting modern medicine to the test to unravel the mystery of the painful illness that plagued the scientist for much of his life. Darwin is the subject of this year's annual Historical Clinicopathological Conference (CPC) sponsored by the University of Maryland School...

A safer and more effective treatment for 10 million people in developing countries who suffer from infections caused by trypanosome parasites could become a reality thanks to new research from Queen Mary, University of London published today (15 April).Scientists have uncovered the mechanisms behind a drug used to treat African sleeping sickness and Chagas disease, infections caused by trypanosome parasites which result in 60,000 deaths each year.The study, appearing in the Journal of...

Researchers have shown that the Trypanosoma cruzi agent of Chagas Disease (CD) invades host embryo cells and spreads its mitochondrial DNA (kDNA) minicircles into the host's genome. Dr. Antonio Teixeira and associates at the University of Brasília, Brazil, inoculated virulent typanosomes in fertile chicken eggs and documented the heritability and fixation of the kDNA mutations in the chicks and their progeny. The results, published in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical...

Neglected infections of poverty are the latest threat plaguing the poorest people living in the Gulf Coast states and in Washington, D.C., according to Dr. Peter Hotez, Distinguished Research Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at The George Washington University and President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, in an editorial published in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases on March 29th.Hotez explains that current...

PERTH, Australia, Dec. 1, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- This medical condition is currently endemic in 21 countries across Latin America killing more people in the region each year than any other parasite-born disease including malaria. Moreover its prevalence is growing in non-endemic developed countries including Australia, USA, Japan, Spain and more with around 8 million cases and 100 million people at risk. The novel compounds identified demonstrated oral activity in an in-vivo mouse model of...

DEERFIELD, Ill., Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- According to recent survey results published in the October issue of The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, obstetricians and gynecologists in the United States are unfamiliar with Chagas' disease, a condition that affects an estimated 300,000 people in the United States and can cause serious cardiovascular and digestive complications. The disease can be transmitted from mother to her unborn child, and as many as 300 congenital...

ROCKVILLE, Md., Sept. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, U.S. scientists committed to finding answers to reducing and eliminating what are known as neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that plague the world's poorest people in developing countries, urged the FDA to include in its orphan classification the neglected infections of poverty that also affect Americans, and expressed support for stronger relationships with the FDA to ultimately halt these ancient scourges. In testimony presented at the FDA...

Researchers propose new ways to combat prevalent public health challengeChagas disease, for example, is caused by a parasite that roams with only limited control among the rural poor in Latin America. The main vector for the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi is the triatomine insect, or "kissing bug," which thrives in the nooks and crannies of mud-brick dwellings. The bug sucks the blood of mammals, helping T. cruzi move between wildlife, cats, dogs and humans."Dogs tend to lie on...

ABBOTT PARK, Ill., May 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Abbott received Biologic License Application (BLA) approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the ABBOTT PRISM Chagas test. The test is a fully automated blood screening assay that can detect antibodies to Trypansoma cruzi (T. cruzi), a parasite found only in the Americas and most commonly acquired through contact with the blood-sucking triatomine or "kissing bug." According to the Centers for Disease Control...