This is one of the most insidious diseases you have never heard of, but Chagas is here in California and 29 other states in the United States
He kills more people in Latin America than malaria every year, and researchers think that around 300,000 people in the United States currently have it but are not aware.
Indeed, the disease tends to stay dormant for years, becoming known only when his victim ends in a heart attack, a stroke or a death.
Chagas disease is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma Cruzi, Which lives in a blood insect called the kiss. There are about a dozen species of kissing bugs in the United States and three in California known to carry the parasite. Research has shown that in some places, such as the Griffith Park in Los Angeles, about a third of all kisses insects shelter the parasite of Chagas’ disease.
This is why a team of epidemiologists, researchers and doctors calls for the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to qualify endemic disease, which is always present, in the United States, they hope that this will bring awareness, education, dialogue and potentially investment in public health to a disease that has long worn, rural people from fartés in nations far.
“This is a disease that has been overlooked and has an impact on Latin American for many decades,” said Norman Beatty, medical epidemiologist at the University of Florida and Chagas illness expert. “But it is also here in the United States.”
“We had a child from Hollywood hills who obtained it,” said Salvador Hernandez, a cardiologist at Kaiser Permanent in northern California. He said that the patient had not traveled outside the country and probably obtained it in his leafy and easy neighborhood, where kisses bugs are widespread.
The parasite has also been detected in local fauna, including wooden rats, skuffs and mouses at Griffith Park, as well as in bats, raccoons and black bears in other parts of the state.
“Kisses are fairly equal likely for who they take a blood meal,” said Sarah Hamer, epidemiologist of the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences from Texas A&M University, listing a variety of animals, such as ocelots, cats, coyotes, birds, reptiles and amphibians.
“This means the tank for T. Cruzi is quite large, ”she said.
California has the greatest number of people in the United States infected with Chagas’ disease – between 70,000 and 100,000. It is mainly because the state is home to so many people in countries where the disease is endemic. But it is also because the parasite and the vector live here, which means that some of these cases could be local.
A small study by the State Ministry of Public Health, for example, revealed that 31 of the 40 human cases reported in the state from 2013 to 2023 – around 78% – were acquired in other countries. For other cases, health officials could not exclude local transmission.
Chagas disease is not a signal disease in California, which means that the state does not require doctors and health systems to report and study it, as it does with flu, Lyme and malaria. However, it can be signaled in the counties of Los Angeles and San Diego; Los Angeles was the first county of the State to demand the declaration of the disease.
For the file:
10:39 am September 2, 2025A previous version of this story said there were 18 cases of Chagas disease in the County of Los Angeles between 2019 and 2023. The actual number is 180.
From 2019 to 2023, health officials confirmed around 180 cases of Chagas disease in the county of the, although many other cases are probably not diagnosed, “the ministry wrote in a statement. He indicated that most of the identified cases involved infections abroad, but some seem to be acquired locally.
Gabriel Hamer, entomologist at Texas A&M, said that confirmed human cases in the United States represent “just the tip of the iceberg” and that no one really knows how many people really have the disease. “There is no standardized report system. There is no active surveillance.”
Most people discover that they only have the disease after trying to give blood, said Hamer.
Janeice Smith, a retired teacher in Florida, discovered that she had it in 2022 after receiving a letter from her local donation center saying that she had been tested positive and should go to a doctor.
Smith now manages a non -profit organization to increase the awareness of Chagas, which she said that she had probably obtained in 1966 when her family went to Mexico for a vacation. She had returned home with a swollen eye and a strong fever, and was hospitalized for several weeks. No one discovered what caused their symptoms to almost six decades later.
Hamer said that kisses’ saliva proteins can cause acute reactions, such as swollen limbs, eyes and anaphylaxis, all unrelated to the parasite carrying the disease.
But it is the longer term or chronic effects that cause the most harm. And because the disease is not well known, and its symptoms are often indistinguishable from other forms of cardiac and organic damage, it is likely that many people will appear at the offices of their doctors with cardiac arrhythmia, swollen esophagus, crises and cerebral vascular accidents without ever being ridged.
“The disease is definitely sub-diagnosed,” said Hernandez, cardiologist Kaiser. “If we have detected for this and caught it early, most patients could be cured. The problem is that we do not do it, and people eventually die or require terribly expensive care ”, including organ transplants and surgery.
Antiparasitic drugs can be used to stop the progression of the disease.
Chagas disease is also widespread in dogs with clinical signs, heart failure or similar arrhythmias.
“We will see these young dogs acutely, generally puppies, or dogs under 1 or 2 years old which are really affected.
She said that dogs often acquire the disease by eating insects, which gives a much higher “dose” of the parasite than a few poops of bugs in a cut.
