(Image source: Wikipedia )

BY LYNDSEY GARZA

ANCHOR CANDICE AVILES

Chagas is a tropical — and usually fatal disease — caused by blood-sucking insects transmitting it to humans.   WOOD-TV has the details.

“It's a parasitic infection prevalent in poor areas of central and south America. Roughly 10-million people are infected with chagas, and it kills at least 20,000 people a year.”

The buzz began with the release of an editorial article “Chagas Disease:” ‘The New HIV/AIDS of the Americas’” in the Public Library of Science online. It is like AIDS by incubation, treatment and by blood or mother-to-child transmission. And The New York Times reports the U.S. is not immune to this disease.

“Chagas infects up to eight million people in the hemisphere... but more than 300,000 of the infected live in the United States, many of them immigrants.”

Chagas is transmitted through insects nicknamed kissing bugs due to their tendency to infect victims on the lips. A fever can present itself upon infection, however a general feeling of fatigue and swelling in one eye can be better indicators. While the symptoms seem benign, the Daily Mail says that is not the case .

“After the acute phase the disease goes into remission and it can take years before symptoms … emerge again in the severe stage. The parasite can eventually make its way to the heart, where it can live and multiply. About a quarter of the people who contract Chagas, develop enlarged heart or intestines that can burst causing sudden death.”

Drug treatment is available for Chagas, but is pricey — around $11,000.  Unlike AIDS, Chagas can be treated in three months. Jezebel argues since this disease commonly affects immigrants or the poor, there has not been enough research done to find new cures.

“Perhaps it would be wise if we started paying attention, since blood-sucking insects don't seem to distinguish much between socio-economic classes and are probably more than happy to spread this horrible disease as far and wide as they can.”

Dr. William Schaffner, President of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, tells ABC News there is much to be done to improve the lives of those infected with Chagas disease.

“This might be called a forgotten disease of forgotten people — impoverished people in the developing world... But I hope [the editorial] shifts the view from forgotten problems of forgotten people to newly recognized and appreciated problems of people who need help.”