World Chagas Disease Day is commemorated this Sunday

Photo Kindness/ Senepa

Asunción, IP Agency.- With the motto: “Early diagnosis, treatment and follow-up” this year, World Chagas Disease Day is commemorated. PAHO/WHO seeks to raise awareness about the need to make a timely diagnosis and lifelong support for people affected by this pathology.

World Chagas Day seeks to give visibility and attention to Chagas and raise the level of awareness in everyone about the importance of improving early detection, expanding diagnostic coverage and equitable access to clinical care for the disease.

It was commemorated for the first time in 2020, after the approval and support received by the 72nd World Health Assembly at the WHO in May 2019. The chosen date coincides with the diagnosis of the first patient with this condition, on the 14th. April 1909. It was about a Brazilian girl, named Berenice Soares de Moura, who was treated by Dr. Carlos Ribeiro Justiniano Chagas.

Chagas is a potentially fatal parasitic disease caused by the microorganism Trypanosoma cruzi. It is transmitted to humans by insects – known as vinchucas or chichã guasu -, by blood transfusion, by consuming contaminated food, and during pregnancy and labor.

According to PAHO/WHO data, of the 21 countries in the region where Chagas is endemic, 17 have managed to interrupt vector transmission in homes at the national or subnational level. Additionally, annual deaths have dropped from an estimated 45,000 in 1990 to 10,000 today, and the population exposed to these insects has dropped from around 100 to 70 million in the last 30 years.

In Paraguay, no new cases infected by the vector route have been recorded since 2012. In this context, in 2018, PAHO/WHO has certified the interruption of intra-domiciliary vector transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi by Triatoma infestans, throughout the national territory. .

This was possible with the implementation of programmatic prevention and control actions that have been maintained over time in a constant and sustained manner, achieving key alliances with the effective participation of all sectors of society and the living forces of the community.

SENEPA aims to develop comprehensive and intersectoral strategies to prevent mortality, reduce morbidity and socioeconomic losses, with interventions aimed at achieving the interruption of congenital and transfusion transmission, through national and international agreements and cooperation.