[dropcap]S[/dropcap]FU researchers have teamed up with scientists around the world to deliver a report on the disease-carrying ‘kissing bug.’
More formally known as the Rhodnius prolixus, kissing bugs feed on the blood of mammals, birds, and reptiles.
They transmit Chagas disease when they simultaneously ‘kiss,’ a much more romantic way to say bite, a person’s face and defecate. Transmission occurs when the feces gets rubbed into the bite wound or another entrance to the body, such as an eye or mouth.
The group of researchers is made up of scientists from Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, the United States. Their goal is to further the development of insect control methods in order to reduce the impact that Chagas disease has on certain impoverished areas of Latin America. Their report contains new information on the insect’s evolution and biology.
Chagas disease, discovered in 1909 by Carlos Chagas, affects roughly 7–10 million people worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While only affecting approximately 300,000 people in the United States and around 5,000 to 10,000 in Canada, most of whom are immigrants from Latin America, an overwhelming majority of those diagnosed are currently living throughout Mexico, as well as Central and South America.
The leading cause of cardiac disease in Latin America, the disease disproportionately affects those living in poverty. This is because the kissing bugs that transmit the disease are often found residing in the cracks and holes of substandard housing.
Transmission can occur from contaminated blood transfusions, infected organ transplants, from mother to child, and most rarely, contaminated food or drink; however, the most common method of transmission is from kissing bugs, of which there are over 100 species.
SFU Biology Professor Carl Lowenberger, one of the authors of the report, explained that “understanding the molecular biology can allow researchers to more easily identify kissing bug-specific genes or processes that can serve as targets for new transmission reducing drugs or insecticides.”
