NIH funding supports ‘One Health’ model to fight Chagas disease

Funded by a $3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health, researchers at the University of Georgia and Texas A&M are using improved detection and treatment methods to understand Chagas disease – a serious, often overlooked illness affecting both dogs and humans.

 Rick Tarleton, UGA Athletic Association Distinguished Professor, will co-lead a new project focused on strategies to detect, treat and monitor treatment outcomes in dogs in Texas:  

The goal is to establish the best practices that prevent the development of cardiac disease, one severe potential side effect of Chagas disease, and to establish resistance to possible future infection.

The researchers will work with dogs that were naturally infected with Chagas disease. Because the disease presents similarly in dogs as in humans, dogs are a good model for examining the effectiveness of the treatment.
 

“There are a number of important questions related to treatment efficacy and the protection that cured subjects have from future infection that cannot be easily addressed in humans but can be in these dog populations that are under intense transmission pressure in Texas,” said Tarleton, Regents Professor in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

Chagas disease is a largely neglected disease. The parasite that causes it, Trypanosoma cruzi, is spread by blood-sucking insects known as kissing bugs, which can be found throughout North, Central and South America.

The disease, which commonly develops in humans and dogs, as well as many other mammals, often goes unnoticed in early stages. But a chronic infection can lead to serious heart and digestive system problems, making early diagnosis and prompt treatment important.

Although most human cases of Chagas disease are reported from South and Central America and Mexico, the parasite and its insect vector are found in abundance in the southern United States. Outdoor pets — particularly working dogs — face especially high risks of infection.

“These areas we are working in have 20% to 30% rates of new infections per year,” Tarleton said. “Those tend to be severe infections where the dogs either die or develop a disease that makes them unable to work.”

Texas has become a hotspot of kissing bugs.

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Image: photo of Kissing bug (Getty Images)