WHO will continue to support the Chagas Disease Program, which promotes patient care

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Catalan Ministry of Health say they will jointly support the expansion of a program that supports patients suffering from Chagas disease to manage their own health and promote self-care.

The Catalan “Patient Expert Program on Chagas Disease” involves the interaction and exchange of information among people affected by the disease, conducted by a professional patient. The program is considered successful since it was first launched in 2017.

“Over the last few years, we have noticed a significant increase in patients’ awareness and confidence in providing medical care and physician monitoring.“Said Dr. Pedro Albajar Vinas, who is responsible for WHO’s Chagas disease program. “When patients talk to each other, it’s better to focus on overall perceptions of health, lifestyle, improved self-esteem, self-care, and personal satisfaction.”

The program also encourages self-responsibility and functions as part of the Catalonia Government’s Program for the Prevention and Care of Chronic Diseases. It is based on three key approaches:

• the support provided by patients and expert observers to those in the chronic phase of the disease;
• promote group interaction through nine carefully planned sessions;
• evaluate the performance of past sessions through a questionnaire before a new session begins.

Many people who have attended the program over the years say they would recommend it to family and friends as it greatly helps to improve knowledge about the disease.

The initiators of the program are convinced that the methodology used and the lessons learned can be part of a broader strategy to encourage comprehensive care for the disease, which is still largely neglected. For example, despite efforts over the past decade, the global detection rate for Chagas disease is less than 10%.

Through this agreement, WHO will support the facilitation of the translation of materials and documents into the languages ​​used in their Member States, as well as assistance in the development of any mobile application if the need arises. The Government of Catalonia will print and distribute for advocacy purposes.

In order to promote global advocacy for this disease, the World Health Assembly – the WHO decision-making body – in 2019 decided to mark April 14 as Chagas Disease Day.

Chagas disease was once restricted to rural Latin American countries where vector transmission is the main route of transmission.

But over the past decades, the disease has been increasingly reported in many countries outside Latin America, mainly due to population movements and migration.

According to WHO estimates, about 6-7 million people are infected Trypanosoma cruzi – a protozoan parasite that causes Chagas disease.

Vector transmission occurs when people come into contact with faeces or urine of triatomic bugs (among many other local names known as “kissing bugs”).

These bugs – vectors carrying parasites – live in the crevices of walls or roofs of homes – where they hide by day and are active at night when they feed on human blood. It usually bites the exposed area of ​​the skin like the face (hence its common name ‘kissing the bug’).

Immediately after the bite, the bug bores / urinates near the bite area. Parasites enter the body when a person instinctively responds to the bite and absorbs feces or urine on the bite, eyes, mouth, or any rupture of the skin.

The parasite can also be transmitted by:

• consuming contaminated food T. cruzi for example, contact with faeces or urine of infected triatomine bugs or marsupials (this type of transmission usually causes epidemics with more severe morbidity and higher mortality – infecting groups of people with more frequent cases of serious illness and more deaths);
• transfusion of blood or blood products from infected donors;
• passage from an infected mother to a newborn during pregnancy or childbirth;
• some organ transplants using infected donor organs; and
• laboratory accidents.

There is no vaccine against Chagas disease. Domicillary vector control and transfusion control, together with congenital transmission, remain the most effective methods of preventing transmission in Latin America.

Chagas disease is named after Carlos Ribeir Justinian Chagas, a Brazilian doctor and researcher who discovered the disease in 1909.