The 1899 Kissing Bug Epidemic That (Probably) Wasn’t | Mental Floss
▻http://mentalfloss.com/article/73604/1899-kissing-bug-epidemic-probably-wasnt
“At night I experienced an attack, & it deserves no less a name, of the Benchuca, the great black bug of the Pampas. It is most disgusting to feel soft wingless insects, about an inch long, crawling over one’s body; before sucking they are quite thin, but afterwards round & bloated with blood, & in this state they are easily squashed.”
—Charles Darwin, March 26, 1835
The bug Darwin speaks of is a member of a group colloquially referred to as “kissing bugs.” Scientifically speaking, the “great black bug of the Pampas” was probably a bloodsucker called Triatoma infestans, an insect which is the primary vector of a parasite called Trypanosoma cruzi. This parasite causes Chagas disease, a debilitating infection that harms the victim in two stages: an acute phase that begins about a week after the bug bite and causes fever and occasional swelling at the site of the bite, and a chronic phase that shows up as long as 25 years after exposure, where the patient’s organs are irreversibly damaged. Organ damage primarily targets the heart and digestive system.
Chagas disease is endemic throughout South and Central America and Mexico, resulting in about 6 million new cases and 7000 to 12,000 deaths per year. Though still rare, increasingly cases have been diagnosed in the U.S. as well, for two main reasons: movement across borders by infected individuals, bringing T. cruzi with them from endemic countries; and new infections acquired in the U.S., which are extremely rare. The kissing bugs that spread Chagas disease can be found in 28 states, though they’re most common in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, but human bites are rare—the bugs are able to feed on a wide variety of animal species.
While most people may not view kissing bugs as a fearful threat today, that wasn’t the case for a short period in the summer of 1899 when kissing bug hysteria reigned in the U.S., according to a research team led by Melissa Nolan Garcia at Baylor College of Medicine.
#insectes #suggestion #épidémie #press #hoax