Improved diagnostics of Chagas disease in endemic areas of Bolivia

Bolivia has the highest burden of infectious disease in Latin America.

Chagas disease, caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, is a major public health problem there and it is also increasing in other parts of the world.

At present, Bolivia has the highest rate of vector and congenital transmission, and the old rural profile of the disease is changing rapidly into urban.

Recent epidemiological data indicates that all the capital cities of the 9 Bolivian departments still have new cases of Chagas disease in children under fifteen. in Bolivia, there is active vector transmission of the parasite, as well as vertical or congenital transmission from infected mothers to their children, during pregnancy, blood transfusions and oral transmission, via food contaminated with triatomine feces.

Despite vector control efforts, there is still a high number of seropositives, cases of congenital Chagas disease and cases of sudden death through cardiac compromise.

The diagnosis of Chagas diseases is performed using commercial kits, but, these are problematic, since they are not specific, for the parasite strains that occur in Bolivia.

By starting this network, we will combine clinical skills from Bolivia with molecular parasitologists from Brazil and comparative parasite genomics from Sweden to carry out a large field study, combined with comparative genomics and identification of new antigens for diagnostics of Bolivian strains.

This will result in improved treatment and monitoring of the disease.