Scary New Disease on the Horizon
MALVEAUX: Doctors are sounding the alarm about a disease that could become the world's next major epidemic. It is called Chagas and it is spreading in South America. Brian Todd, he's on the case. He tells us that it's transmitted rather easily by something as simple as a bug bite.</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): AIDS. The scourge of the post war era, killing more than 25 million people over the past three decades. Is there a new AIDS on the horizon? Experts worry about a disease now affecting millions in Latin America.</s>DR. PETER HOTEZ, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: I like to call Chagas disease arguably the most important infection you've never heard about. And you've never heard about it because it almost exclusively affects people living in extreme poverty.</s>TODD: Chagas, a parasitic infection prevalent in poor areas of Central and South America. Dr. Peter Hotez is lead author in a recent editorial about Chagas in a respected medical journal. Health authorities say roughly 10 million people are infected with Chagas. Hotez estimate it kills at least 20,000 people a year.</s>TODD (on camera): Is this difficult or impossible to cure?</s>HOTEZ: There are two medicine available which, if you catch the infection very early on, seem to have some beneficial effect on treating the patient. The problem is, once the heart symptoms start, which is the most dreaded complication, the Chagas cardiomyopathy, the medicines no longer work very well, problem number one. Problem number two, the medicine are extremely toxic.</s>TODD (voice-over): Also, Hotez says, Chagas is like AIDS because it's contaminated part of the blood supply in South America.</s>TODD (on camera): This is ground zero for Chagas, the Reduvient (ph) bug, prevalent in Latin America. Experts say the parasite for Chagas lives in its guts. It likes to hide in wall crevices and thatched roofs. Then, at night, it drops onto people who are sleeping. It likes to bite you in the face. It's called "the kissing bug." When it ingests your blood, it excretes the parasite at the same time. When you wake up and scratch the itch, the parasite moves into the wound and you're infected. You can be infected with Chagas for decades before you actually get the severe symptoms of the disease. But then, when you move into the severe stage, you can develop an enlarged heart or intestines that can burst.</s>TODD (voice-over): But Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health says Hotez and others are overstating the danger of Chagas.</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: I am concerned that when people talk about comparisons with HIV, that that comparison would translate into thinking its transmitted like it is with HIV, which is just not the case.</s>TODD: Fauci says Chagas is transmitted primarily by the bug biting you, by pregnant women infecting their children, and by people living in areas where it's prevalent, donating blood that's not screened. Dr. Fauci says only about 20 percent of people who get infected will go on to get the life-threatening form of the disease, and he says Chagas does not pose a significant danger to people in the U.S. Dr. Peter Hotez disagrees, saying there is transmission in south Texas and those Reduvient bugs can be found in south Texas and that many dogs in that area have Chagas. Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.</s>MALVEAUX: She's just six years old and she's probably a better speller than I am.