Chagas disease or American trypanosomiasis is a neglected disease that affects more than 16 million people in Latin America. Over 300,000 patients become newly infected every year, and approximately 21,000 individuals die annually. In the United States and several European countries, Chagas disease is becoming an emerging public health problem as a consequence of the immigration of infected people from endemic countries. Chagas disease is caused by the hemoflagellate protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which infects a wide variety of mammals, including humans. T. cruzi infection is transmitted mainly by blood-feeding triatomine bugs, but it can also be transmitted from mother to child as well as through blood transfusions, organ transplants and the ingestion of contaminated food or fluids. Initially, the infection caused by T. cruzi presents with a short acute phase with nonspecific clinical symptoms that may last between eight and sixteen 8 and 16 weeks; this phase is characterized by an elevated burden of parasites in the bloodstream and tissues.
Immunization with the recombinant surface protein rTcSP2 alone or fused to the CHP or ATPase domain of TcHSP70 induces protection against acute Trypanosoma cruzi infection: Alejandro Carabarin-Lima, MarÃa Cristina González-Vázquez, Lidia Baylon-Pacheco, Victor Tsutsumi, Patricia Talamás-Rohana and José Luis Rosales-Encina
Last date updated on March, 2024