Blood-sucking ‘kissing bug’ has infected 300k Americans with deadly disease

Reuters / Tomas Bravo TB / JJ

RT | Nov 10, 2014

The United States is being infected by Chagas, a deadly disease spread by the feces of a parasite nicknamed the “kissing bug.” It bites sleeping victims, ingests the blood and defecates on them; patients then unknowingly rub the feces into open membranes.

Chagas disease is seen as a “silent killer” by those who study and treat it, as it can often lurk in people’s bloodstreams for up to two decades before causing their organs to fail. The initial stage of the tropical illness ‒ the acute phase ‒ is mostly symptom-free and lasts for the first few weeks or months, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If a patient does exhibit symptoms, they can easily be mistaken for another disease.

The symptoms noted by the patient can include fever, fatigue, body aches, headache, rash, loss of appetite, diarrhea, and vomiting. The signs on physical examination can include mild enlargement of the liver or spleen, swollen glands, and local swelling (a chagoma) where the parasite entered the body, the CDC explained.

"People don't normally feel sick," Melissa Nolan Garcia, a research associate at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the lead author of two of three recently published studies, explained in a statement, "so they don't seek medical care, but it ultimately ends up causing heart disease in about 30 percent of those who are infected."

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