Serious Latin American disease is more common in Texas than thought

A blood-sucking insect that claims thousands of lives in Latin America each year is believed to be a greater threat in Texas than previously thought and has killed dogs and possibly some people in the state, a state health official and University of Texas researcher said this week.

They don’t know how many people have been exposed to Chagas disease or might have it because doctors are not required to report the illness to health departments. But state health department official Jim Schuermann and UT researcher Shotra Sarkar want to change that and hope to make Central Texas doctors aware of the illness.

Central and South Texas are the two highest-risk areas in the state for Chagas, according to Sarkar, a professor of integrative biology and philosophy who has been studying the disease for five years. Read more…