New tropical disease

I was just checking my mail and I stumbled upon these, let's say disturbing news. In a medical journal was published that Chagas is a tropical disease mostly spread in Latin America, for now, and there is already 8 million people infected.

"There are a number of striking similarities between people living with Chagas disease and people living with HIV/AIDS, particularly for those with HIV/AIDS who contracted the disease in the first two decades of the HIV/AIDS epidemic."

Chagas isn't sexually-transmitted, the insects "like to bite you on the face. It's called the kissing bug. When it ingests your blood, it excretes the parasite at the same time. When you wake up and scratch the itch, the parasite moves into the wound and you're infected."

This is the first time I heard about this disease. What do you guys think? Is this for real or they are trying to hide something bigger from the people?  :'$

Sounds quite scary but I guess we'll need more information.

I think it is very real and you pose an excellent question about "hiding something bigger from the people". It does make you wonder what all we don't know. Is it a good idea to keep a low profile on certain diseases to prevent mass hysteria?

I remember just a couple years ago, Mexico that borders the US had an epidemic of a flu virus that was so serious people were dying from it. Word spread throughout the US of this deadly virus and Americans were basically warned not to travel there.

Almost over night the news media dropped any related stories about it and the coverage was gone as quick as it came. We all began to wonder why there was such a quick hush on it suddenly. Was it because we are one of the biggest tourists to Mexico and perhaps a plea to hush was ordered?

Makes you really wonder.

Lips

I think it's real for sure. I would be willing to bet there's a lot that we don't know. Although are they right in hiding things to prevent chaos? If you were running the country would you share such disturbing things that may cause riots and major disturbances?

It looks as though this disease was discovered in 1909.  Here is a Fox news item about it HERE.  It says that Charles Darwin may have died from this disease!

Scary stuff.

blue

Scary indeed, and I also wonder how much they are letting us know about it, but that's kind of good, I guess.  It would be interesting to check correlation between certain type of news aired and big political and financial crisis. I just believe that certain news are used for ordinary people to take their attention away from what’s actually going on. Conspiracy theories. 

The comparison is unfair and causes undo panic. I don't think this can be compared to AIDS, which was initially spread by homosexual sexual activity, not bug bites.  But...the media love to "hype it up!"

I have to agree with you Mind Doc... I read a lot about it from quite a few sources when I first read this thread. I too found what blueday did about it being discovered as far back as 1909... so, it is not new, just not discussed or studied much to date.

Also, I found estimates for the total number of people infected from 8 million to 20 million. Sure, those are large numbers, but as a percentage of the billions of people in the world today they are not so large a percentage as many other diseases that people die from on a regular daily basis.

Yes, it does sound like a terrible disease, but to compare it to aids or to call it a world pandemic is just wrong.

Yes, it is spreading to some areas of the world that have not heard of it before... that is the way of the world today... it is a small world. But, the truth is that it is still mostly restriced to Central and South America where most of the millions infected are living in poverty with inadequate or non-existent healthcare...

If diagnosed in its early stages it is easily curable... a bit further along it is a bit more difficult, but still curable... only in the very late stages when it is causing problems with organs like the heart and other useful bits is it truly deadly and that takes many years to happen and does not happen to all people who are infected.

So, yes, sensationalizing it and causing undue panic worldwide is just "hype." 

katt