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Source: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/loc...as-3650719.php
Chagas disease carrier may be threat in Texas
By Don Finley
Updated 02:34 a.m., Thursday, June 21, 2012
For years, scientists have known that the sweetly named kissing bug found throughout South and Central Texas carries the parasite that causes Chagas disease, a major killer in parts of Latin America.
What wasn't known is if those Texas bugs infect people, although they clearly infect animals ? including bomb-sniffing dogs at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and nonhuman primates at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute.
That question is slowly being answered, and the news isn't good. At an infectious disease conference here Wednesday, state and local health officials said the bug not only invades homes in the region, but likely has infected at least a handful of people inside them...
Chagas disease carrier may be threat in Texas
By Don Finley
Updated 02:34 a.m., Thursday, June 21, 2012
For years, scientists have known that the sweetly named kissing bug found throughout South and Central Texas carries the parasite that causes Chagas disease, a major killer in parts of Latin America.
What wasn't known is if those Texas bugs infect people, although they clearly infect animals ? including bomb-sniffing dogs at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and nonhuman primates at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute.
That question is slowly being answered, and the news isn't good. At an infectious disease conference here Wednesday, state and local health officials said the bug not only invades homes in the region, but likely has infected at least a handful of people inside them...