This paper studies the period considered the 'prehistory' of the Instituto de Biofísica, namely between November 1937 and October 1945, during which Carlos Chagas Filho championed the inclusion of scientific research at Universidade do Brasil (UB), despite facing multiple and complex obstacles. The lack of successful precedents at UB isolated him to one inexpressive chair. The equipment availab...

Chagas disease, caused by Trypanosoma cruzi infection, is ranked as the most serious parasitic disease in Latin America and has huge potential to become a worldwide problem, due to increasing migration, and international tourism, as well as infectant transfer by blood contact and transfusion, intrauterine transfer, and organ transplantation. Nearly 30% of chronically-infected patients become sy...

Trypanosoma cruzi, the agent of Chagas’ disease, is highly persistent in blood collected and stored in blood banks (I, 2). Indeed, transfusions constitute the second most important avenue of Chagas’ disease transmission in Chile, the most important being provided by the man-biting insect vector Triatoma infestans. The specific area endemic for Chagas’ disease in Chile covers roughly the norther...

To the Editor: The year 2009 was the 100th anniversary of Carlos Cha-gas's discovery of the disease caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, now known as Chagas disease. Spread by infected bugs called triatomines, the disease is endemic throughout much of Mexico and Central and South Ameri-ca. An estimated 8–11 million persons in Latin America have the disease (1). T. cruzi infection causes mo...

Chagas disease-associated cardiomyopathy is clinically similar to other causes of cardiomyopathy and, therefore, the diagnosis can be easily overlooked. We found a 13% point prevalence of Chagas disease in a sample of New York City immigrants with dilated cardiomyopathy.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES Impairment of the autonomous nervous system in early stages of Chagas' disease is still a matter of debate, although multiple approaches (including heart rate response to orthostatism and the Valsalva maneuver, and spontaneous variability) have been used to ascertain its occurrence. The circadian profile of heart rate and its variability have not been investigated in...

Various researchers have studied the importance of the oral transmission of Chagas' disease since the mid-20th century. Only in recent years, due to an outbreak that occurred in the Brazilian State of Santa Catarina in 2005 and to various outbreaks occurring during the last 3 years in the Brazilian Amazon basin, mainly associated with the consumption of Amazonian palm berry or açaí (Euterpe ole...

American trypanosomiasis, or Chagas disease, a zoonosis caused by Trypanosoma cruzi (T. cruzi), is endemic in Latin America and ten million people are estimated to be infected (Araújo et al 2009, World Health Organization (WHO), 2010). In the past decades, Chagas disease has been increasingly detected in other non-endemic countries such as Canada, the United States of America, Australia, Japan ...

solicitud de sobretiros: Tania C. de Araújo-Jorge, Laboratório de Inovações em Terapias, Ensino e Bioprodutos, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. E-mail: [email protected] recibido: el 3 de noviembre de 2009. Aceptado para publicación: el 19 de diciembre de 2009 Chagas disease is a major public health problem in Latin America. At present, Bolivia has the...