How Can Blood Save Your Life?, page-6

Chagas' disease illustrates how blood carries disease to distant people. The Medical Post (January 16, 1990) reports that '10-12 million people in Latin America are chronically infected.' It has been called "one of the most important transfusion hazards in South America." An "assassin bug" bites a sleeping victim in the face, sucks blood, and defecates in the wound. The victim may carry Chagas' disease for years (meanwhile possibly donating blood) before developing fatal heart complications. Why should that concern people on distant continents? In The New York Times (May 23, 1989), Dr. L. K. Altman reported on patients with posttransfusion Chagas' disease, one of whom died. Altman wrote: "Additional cases may have gone undetected because [doctors here] are not familiar with Chagas' disease, nor do they realize that it could be spread by transfusions." Yes, blood can be a vehicle by which diseases travel widely.