Okay so this isn't your average gossip, but I think its something that everyone should be talking about. A new disease that is killing people in Central and South America is slowly coming over to North America. People are dropping like flies and scientists are calling it the NEW AIDS.
Do I have your attention now?
When I first heard about it earlier this summer, I thought it was just like AIDS. Maybe its just another sexually transmitted disease. I use condoms regularly, so I thought I was good. But, then I kept reading....
Its spread by parasites related to the African trypanosome which is basically a reduvid bug, which looks like this.
Once you get bitten by one of these bugs you go through an acute phase which is feeling sick, fever, swelling of an eye and swelling and red coloration where you were bitten. Then the symptoms disappear for a few years. When it does come back, people experience digestive problems, constipation, swallowing difficulties and pain in the abdomen.It can take up to twenty years for these symptoms to pop up. It's like dying a slow death.
The way that it ultimately kills people is through heart failure. It can also trigger strokes in people as young as the age of thirty. Reduvid bugs carrying the parasite can infect raccoons, dogs and people. The blood-borne disease also passes from mother to child while in the uterus.
There is some form of treatment but most doctors overlook the signs of Chagas because it is so uncommon in the United States. But people and animals do migrate.
The reason it freaked me out is because it can be carried by an insect and during the summertime, they are everywhere! Thank God there are people who are stopping this from becoming an epidemic but this disease should be known by everyone because it is definitely the silent killer.
No comments:
Post a Comment