Reduviid bug

Symptoms next include dementia, tremor, and ataxia progressing most often to coma and death survivors show severe chronic meningoencephalitis. The American form of trypanosomiasis (Chagas disease) is a common health problem in Central and Southern America and is transmitted by reduviid bugs. Polymyositis, myocarditis and encephalomyelitis are constant features of the disorder but may be accompanied by more widespread visceral involvement. Infection can be confirmed by complement fixation tests but antibodies do not occur in the blood until about two months after infection. 

The transmission of Tryp. cruzi is caused by reduviid bugs, which excrete infectious trypanosomes in their faeces. These enter the body through small skin or mucosal lesions. They cause the South American sleeping sickness , also called Chagas disease (C. Chagas, 1908). In the liver only portal round-cell infiltrates are found. 

The reduviid bug is infected by sucking blood from animals (e.g., opossums, dogs, and cats) or humans infected with circulating trypo-mastigotes (Table 113-5). 

T. cruzi is the agent that causes American trypanosomiasis. American trypanosomiasis is transmitted by a number of species of a reduviid bug (Triatoma infestans, Rhodrium prolixus) that live in wall cracks of houses in rural areas of North, Central, and South America. 

Chagas disease Disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi that occurs in the southern United States and is endemic to Mexico transmitted by several kinds of reduviid bugs. 

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