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Following increasing reinfestation with Triatoma infestans after insecticide spraying, the household incidence of infection with Trypanosoma cruzi in children was positively related to the domestic abundance of infected T. infestans and the presence or proportion of infected dogs or cats in Amamá, a rural village in northwestern Argentina. Seven (12.1%) children seronegative for antibodies to T. cruzi at baseline, with no history of travel or blood transfusion, seroconverted after three years. Six incident cases lived in houses heavily infested with T. infestans, with high proportions of bugs infected with T. cruzi and having fed on humans or dogs. The remaining incident case occurred under a very light domestic infestation detected only at the endpoint, and most bugs had fed on humans. Dogs had a 17 times greater force of infection than children (4.3% per year). Sustained vector surveillance is crucially needed in high-risk areas for Chagas disease such as the Gran Chaco.
Received November 18, 2004. Accepted for publication December 16, 2004.
Acknowledgments: We thank Abel Hurvitz and his staff at the Servicio Nacional de Chagas (Argentina), and Nicolás Schweigmann and Diego P. Vázquez for their support. Helpful comments were provided by Richard Reithinger. Dr. Oscar Ledesma Patiño kindly gave us support at the Hospital Independencia in Santiago del Estero. Ricardo E. Gürtler thanks the Latin American Network for Research on the Biology and Control of Triatominae (ECLAT) for helpful discussions. Ricardo E. Gürtler, María C. Cecere, and Elsa L. Segura are members of the Researchers Career (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Argentina).
Financial support: This study was supported by grants from the Rockefeller Foundation (New York) to Rockefeller University (New York) for a collaborative research project on modeling transmission dynamics and control of Chagas disease in Argentina (principal investigators: Joel E. Cohen, Roberto Chuit, and Ricardo E. Gürtler) and from the University of Buenos Aires to Ricardo E. Gürtler. The participation of Joel E. Cohen was also supported, in part, by U. S. National Science Foundation Grant DEB-9981552. Joel E. Cohen thanks Mr. and Mrs. William T. Golden for hospitality during this work. The final stage of the study was supported by National Institutes of Health research grant # R01 TW05836 funded by the Fogarty International Center and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) (principal co-investigators: Uriel Kitron and Ricardo E. Gürtler).
* Address correspondence to Ricardo E. Gürtler, Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolució n, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EHA, Buenos Aires, Argentina. E-mail: gurtler{at}bg.fcen.uba.ar
Authors addresses: Ricardo E. Gürtler, María C. Cecere, and Rosario M. Petersen, Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EHA, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Marta A. Lauricella and Elsa L. Segura, Instituto Nacional de Parasitología Dr. Mario Fatala Chabén, Paseo Colón 568, 1063 Buenos Aires, Argentina. Roberto Chuit, Centro de Investigaciones Epidemiológicas, Academia Nacional de Medicina, Avenida Las Heras 3092, 1425 Buenos Aires, Argentina. Joel E. Cohen, Laboratory of Populations, Box 20, Rockefeller University and Columbia University, 1230 York Avenue, New York, NY 10021-6399.
Reprint requests: Ricardo Esteban Gürtler, Laboratorio de Eco-Epidemiología, Departamento de Ecología, Genética y Evolución, Ciudad Universitaria, C1428EHA, Buenos Aires, Argentina, E-mail: gurtler{at}bg.fcen.uba.ar.
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