‘Kissing bug disease’ far deadlier than previously thought

A new study has found that Chagas disease may have been underreported as a cause of death.

The study, published in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, was led by researchers from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. The researchers sampled more than 8,000 people who donated blood from 1996 to 2000 and found 2,842 donors tested positive for Chagas disease at the time of blood donation. It was recorded that 159 of the Chagas-positive blood donors died during the 14-year time frame.

Those in the study with Chagas had a two to three times higher risk of dying, and 17 times more likely to develop cardiac disease, Ester Cerdeira Sabino, who co-led the study team, told CNN.

Chagas is transmitted by the triatomine bug, which is called the kissing bug because it bites sleeping humans near the eyes and lips. Kissing bugs defecate in or near the broken skin when they feed, transferring the Trypanosoma cruzi parasite into the bloodstream.

Chagas causes flu-like symptoms that subside after a few months, but it can reappear years or decades later as heart disease. The authors of the study found that Chagas was not reported as a cause of death in 42 percent of people in the study who died from cardiac disease, suggesting it has been underreported as a cause of death.

“What the parasite does to the body takes a long time; (it) slowly goes into the heart and destroys it,” Sabino told CNN. “We have measured accurately the risk of death, (as) a lot of mortality data doesn't account for Chagas.”

Chagas has been identified by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of five neglected parasitic infections that require public health action. The CDC estimates there are 300,000 cases in the U.S. Kissing bugs have been reported in 28 U.S. states, mostly in the South.

There is currently no vaccine against the disease.