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- Title
Seroprevalence of Chagas Infection in the Donor Population.
- Authors
Zaniello, Ben A.; Kessler, Deborah A.; Vine, Katherine M.; Grima, Kathleen M.; Weisenberg, Scott A.
- Abstract
We retrospectively calculated the prevalence and epidemiologic characteristics of Chagas infection in the New York blood donor population over three years utilizing the New York Blood Center's database of the New York metropolitan area donor population. Seventy Trypanosoma cruzi positive donors were identified from among 876,614 donors over a 3-year period, giving an adjusted prevalence of 0.0083%, with 0.0080% in 2007, 0.0073% in 2008, and 0.0097% in 2009. When filtered only for self-described "Hispanic/Latino" donors, there were 52 Chagas positive donors in that 3-year period (among 105,122 self-described Hispanic donors) with an adjusted prevalence of 0.052%, with 0.055% in 2007, 0.047% in 2008, and 0.053% in 2009. In conclusion, we found a persistent population of patients with Chagas infection in the New York metropolitan area donor population. There was geographic localization of cases which aligned with Latin American immigration clusters. Author Summary: Chagas Disease is a common and economically devastating disease of Latin America, with millions infected and many more at risk of infection. The hallmark of Chagas Disease is a long asymptomatic latent period (after an often tiny bug bite) followed by potentially fatal cardiac or gastrointestinal sequelae. Despite the significant number of immigrants from Chagas-endemic regions, prevalence data outside of its countries of origin remains limited. Our study looks at Trypanosoma cruzi infection in one group, blood donors in the New York metropolitan area, as this was a non invasive way to sample a sometimes difficult-to-reach population. We found that Chagas infection is in fact present, particularly in the Hispanic donors, at a consistent level over the three years we studied. We then compared the blood donor locations to a map of foreign born Hispanics in eastern Long Island in New York and found overlapping concentrations. This may mean that there is an opportunity for large scale community-focused screenings of foreign-born populations that could be both lifesaving and cost effective.
- Subjects
NEW York (State); LONG Island (N.Y.); CHAGAS' disease; SEROPREVALENCE; METROPOLITAN areas; COUNTRY of origin (Immigrants); BLOOD donors; FOREIGN bodies
- Publication
PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, 2012, Vol 6, Issue 7, p1
- ISSN
1935-2727
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1371/journal.pntd.0001771