Chagas disease is a human tropical parasitic disease which occurs in the Americas, particularly in South America. Its pathogenic agent is a flagellate protozoan named Trypanosoma cruzi, which is transmitted to humans and other mammals mostly by hematophagous insects of the subfamily Triatominae. Those insects are known by numerous common names varying by country, including assassin bug, benchuca, and kissing bug. Other forms of transmission are possible, though, such as ingestion of food contaminated with parasites, blood transfusion and fetal transmission. T. cruzi is in the same genus as the infectious agent of African sleeping sickness, but its clinical manifestations, geographical distribution, life cycle and insect vectors are quite different.
Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagas_disease
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1667: The Treaty of Breda ended the Second Anglo-Dutch War. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Breda)
1790: The U.S. Patent Office issued the first patent in the United States. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/patent)
1917: The Battle of Passchendaele began on the Western Front in World War I. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passchendaele)
1941: Holocaust: Hermann Göring ordered SS general Reinhard Heydrich to develop a final solution to the Jewish question. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/final_solution)
1971: Apollo program: The first Lunar Rover was used during the Apollo 15 moon mission. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Rover)
_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:
"I think I'd most like to spend a day with Harry. I'd take him out for a meal and apologise for everything I've put him through." -- J. K. Rowling (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling)