Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, is a tropical parasitic disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi. It is spread mostly by insects in the subfamily Triatominae, known as "kissing bugs". The symptoms change over the course of the infection. In the early stage, symptoms are typically either not present or mild, and may include fever, swollen lymph nodes, headaches, or swelling at the site of the bite. After four to eight weeks, untreated individuals enter the chronic phase of disease, which in most cases does not result in further symptoms. Up to 45% of people with chronic infections develop heart disease 10–30 years after the initial illness, which can lead to heart failure. Digestive complications, including an enlarged esophagus or an enlarged colon, may also occur in up to 21% of people, and up to 10% of people may experience nerve damage.
Ethidium bromide is an intercalating agent commonly used as a fluorescent tag in molecular biology laboratories for techniques such as agarose gel electrophoresis. It is commonly abbreviated as EtBr, which is also an abbreviation for bromoethane. To avoid confusion, some laboratories have used the abbreviation EthBr for this salt. When exposed to ultraviolet light, it will fluoresce with an orange colour, intensifying almost 20-fold after binding to DNA. Under the name homidium, it has been commonly used since the 1950s in veterinary medicine to treat trypanosomiasis in cattle. The high incidence of antimicrobial resistance makes this treatment impractical in some areas, where the related isometamidium chloride is used instead. Despite its reputation as a mutagen, tests have shown it to have low mutagenicity without metabolic activation.
Trypanosomiasis or trypanosomosis is the name of several diseases in vertebrates caused by parasitic protozoan trypanosomes of the genus Trypanosoma. In humans this includes African trypanosomiasis and Chagas disease. A number of other diseases occur in other animals.
Trypanosoma is a genus of kinetoplastids, a monophyletic group of unicellular parasitic flagellate protozoa. Trypanosoma is part of the phylum Sarcomastigophora. The name is derived from the Greek trypano- (borer) and soma (body) because of their corkscrew-like motion. Most trypanosomes are heteroxenous and most are transmitted via a vector. The majority of species are transmitted by blood-feeding invertebrates, but there are different mechanisms among the varying species. Trypanosoma equiperdum is spread between horses and other equine species by sexual contact. They are generally found in the intestine of their invertebrate host, but normally occupy the bloodstream or an intracellular environment in the vertebrate host.
Tribendimidine is a broad-spectrum anthelmintic agent developed in China, at the National Institute of Parasitic Diseases in Shanghai. It is a derivative of amidantel.
Trypanosoma brucei is a species of parasitic kinetoplastid belonging to the genus Trypanosoma that is present in sub-Saharan Africa. Unlike other protozoan parasites that normally infect blood and tissue cells, it is exclusively extracellular and inhabits the blood plasma and body fluids. It causes deadly vector-borne diseases: African trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness in humans, and animal trypanosomiasis or nagana in cattle and horses. It is a species complex grouped into three subspecies: T. b. brucei, T. b. gambiense and T. b. rhodesiense. The first is a parasite of non-human mammals and causes nagana, while the latter two are zoonotic infecting both humans and animals and cause African trypanosomiasis.
Trypanosoma evansi is a parasitic species of excavate trypanosome in the genus Trypanosoma that is one cause of surra in animals. Discovered by Griffith Evans in 1880 at Dera Ismail Khan, it is the first known trypanosome that causes infection. It is a common parasite in India and Iran and causes acute disease in camels and horses, and chronic disease in cattle and buffalo. In Pakistan, it has been found to be the most prevalent trypanosome species in donkeys. It is now established to infect other mammals, including humans.
Triatoma dimidiata is a blood-sucking insect whose range extends from northern South America, throughout all the countries of Central America and into Southern Mexico. It is among the most important carriers of Trypanosoma cruzi, the flagellate protozoa that causes Chagas disease. Dimidiata has been found in rock piles, caves occupied by bats, hollow trees occupied by mammals or birds, and other diverse ecotopes. However, their presence in human abodes is usually happenstance; people tend to bring them indoors with their firewood. When in the nymph form they may camouflage themselves from predators by scraping dust over their dorsal abdomen, a behavior also observed in T. phyllosoma, T. nigromaculata, Panstrongylus geniculatus, P. megistus and P. herreri nymphs. Moreover, due to geological past in Mesoamerica such as forest loss, and rising temperatures, there has been an increase in Triatomine bugs infestation.
Cinchocaine (INN/BAN) or dibucaine (USAN) is an amide local anesthetic. Among the most potent and toxic of the long-acting local anesthetics, current use of cinchocaine is generally restricted to spinal and topical anesthesia. It is sold under the brand names Cincain, Nupercainal, Nupercaine and Sovcaine.
Nifurtimox, sold under the brand name Lampit, is a medication used to treat Chagas disease and sleeping sickness. For sleeping sickness it is used together with eflornithine in nifurtimox-eflornithine combination treatment. In Chagas disease it is a second-line option to benznidazole. It is given by mouth.
The alternative oxidase (AOX) is an enzyme that forms part of the electron transport chain in mitochondria of different organisms. Proteins homologous to the mitochondrial oxidase and the related plastid terminal oxidase have also been identified in bacterial genomes.
Trypanosoma congolense is a species of trypanosomes and is the major pathogen responsible for the disease nagana in cattle and other animals including sheep, pigs, goats, horses and camels, dogs, as well as laboratory mice. It is the most common cause of nagana in east Africa, but is also a major cause of nagana in west Africa. This parasite is spread by tsetse flies. In its mammalian host, Trypanosoma congolense only lives in blood vessels, and causes in particular anaemia.
A trypanocidal agent is an antiprotozoal agent that acts upon trypanosome parasites.
Isometamidium chloride is a triazene trypanocidal agent used in veterinary medicine.
Cruzipain is a cysteine protease expressed by Trypanosoma cruzi.
A Trypanosomiasis vaccine is a vaccine against trypanosomiasis. No effective vaccine currently exists, but development of a vaccine is the subject of current research.
A Schistosomiasis vaccine is a vaccine against Schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease caused by several species of fluke of the genus Schistosoma. No effective vaccine for the disease exists yet. Schistosomiasis affects over 200 million people worldwide, mainly in rural agricultural and peri-urban areas of the third world, and approximately 10% suffer severe health complications from the infection. While chemotherapeutic drugs, such as praziquantel, oxamniquine and metrifonate both no longer on the market, are currently considered safe and effective for the treatment of schistosomiasis, reinfection occurs frequently following drug treatment, thus a vaccine is sought to provide long-term treatment. Additionally, experimental vaccination efforts have been successful in animal models of schistosomiasis.
Biomphalaria straminea is a species of air-breathing freshwater snail, an aquatic pulmonate gastropod mollusk in the family Planorbidae, the ram's horn snails.
Eli Katunguka-Rwakishaya is a Ugandan veterinarian, academic and academic administrator. He is the Vice Chancellor of Kyambogo University, one of Uganda's public universities. He was appointed to that position in February 2014. Prior to that, he served at the Director of Postgraduate studies at Makerere University, the oldest and largest public university in the country.
A trypanotolerant organism is one which is relatively less affected by trypanosome infestation.
