Citation, extracts and comment from me.
CITATION: Bull World Health Organ. 2026 May 11;104(6):435–437. doi: 10.2471/BLT.25.294114
Towards elimination of Chagas disease
Debbie Vermeij a,✉, Carlos M Morel a, Claudia Chamas a, Luiz V P Mendes a, Andrea Silvestre-Sousa a
PMCID: PMC13223689 PMID: 42232829
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC13223689/
EXTRACTS
Chagas disease is a neglected tropical disease, caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi...
Chagas disease is mainly found in the World Health Organization (WHO) Region of the Americas...
Symptomatic Chagas disease poses a substantial financial burden on health-care systems and societies...
Over the past decades, the focus on Chagas disease has shifted from a vector-centred approach to a people-centred approach, with several international, regional and national initiatives to improve health service provision and access to diagnostics, treatment and comprehensive care, especially at the primary health-care level...
The diagnosis of chronic T. cruzi infection relies on serological tests...
Second, ensuring access to effective, efficient and safe antiparasitic treatment for T. cruzi infection is critical for elimination...
People affected by Chagas disease have a right to timely diagnosis and effective treatment, and this right must be guaranteed globally and collectively...
COMMENT (NPW): The article focuses more on the availability of diagnostic tests and not on how to empower primary health workers to recognise the clinical picture of Chagas. Knowledge of frontline health workers is the first step.
A recent paper in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases indicates serious deficits in knowledge, even among health workers working in an area at high risk of the disease.
CITATION: 2026 Feb 9;20(2):e0014000. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0014000. eCollection 2026 Feb.
Knowledge about Chagas disease among Primary Health Care professionals in a municipality located in northeastern Brazil
Marcio Cerqueira Almeida et al.
https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0014000
Chagas disease is often missed because health workers are not trained to recognise it. When it goes unrecognised, people can develop serious, preventable complications, and opportunities for treatment and prevention are lost. It kills around 10,000 people a year, of which 80% could have been avoided with early diagnosis and correct treatment.
A topic for a HIFA Spotlight? www.hifa.org/spotlights
Best wishes, Neil
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org