More Than 300,000 Americans May Have "the New Aids"

[Flashermac]

A potentially fatal disease is spreading through the southwest and moving northward, but most cases will go unnoticed until it's too late. Dubbed 'the new AIDS', few healthcare workers are knowledgeable about it.

 

Chagas, also known as the 'kissing bug disease', is spread by kissing bugs. The bug's feces carry the Trypanosoma cruzi parasite. If the parasite gets into your bloodstream and goes untreated it can cause deadly complications like heart failure.

 

According to researchers at the Annual Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, if caught early the disease can be treated. Unfortunately, the disease can often be asymptomatic. Symptoms can also be misdiagnosed since many U.S. healthcare workers are unfamiliar with the disease. The CDC reports some symptoms as fatigue, fever, aches, rash, diarrhea and vomiting. A telltale sign is purplish swelling of one eyelid.

 

Another problem is a shortage of nifurtimox and benznidazole, the medications used to treat the disease. Since the medications themselves can cause complications like nerve damage and nausea, doctors like to use it only as a last resort.

 

Chagas is not entirely new. It's been found south of the border and has long infected high poverty areas. With climate change, it’s been spreading, and is expected to continue to spread north. “We were astonished to not only find such a high rate of individuals testing positive for Chagas in their blood, but also high rates of heart disease that appear to be Chagas-related,†said Baylor College of Medicine epidemiologist Nolan Garcia.

 

As awareness grows in more affluent areas, perhaps the disease will attract the attention it needs to fund research.

 

http://www.newsiosity.com/articles/society/more-300000-americans-may-have-new-aids

[bust]

I don't generally kiss bugs

[StoneSoup]

"With climate change, its been spreading..."

 

Oh, really? Do you mean "global warming" ? But - there has been no warming - for at least the last 17 years, or so.

 

Or - could it possibly be: the teeming hordes of tens of thousands of impoverished illegal Latino immigrants that the Obamadebacle has basically invited and encouraged to flood into the USA - and who have been purposefully distributed to virtually all 50 states - and who come from areas in which Chagras disease is endemic - might that POSSIBLY have something to do with this new crisis?

 

The utterly pathetic state of journalism in America is staggering.

 

SS