A deadly blood-sucking parasite, introduced into America by Mexicans crossing the porous southern border, has infected up to 300,000 Americans — and 300,000 more Americans are expected to be infected by year’s end according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Doctors at the CDC compare the deadly “kissing bug” disease to the virus that causes HIV/AIDS.
The disease called Chaga is spread by the feces of a parasite called Trypanosoma cruzi, also known as the conenose bug, kissing bug, assassin bug, or triatomines.
Chaga is endemic to Mexico, where 11 million people have been infected.
The disease — dubbed the “silent killer” — is similar to HIV because it begins innocuously with no symptoms.
Like the HIV virus, the disease can lurk in patient’s bloodstreams for two decades without causing symptoms.
Symptoms (that you feel) can include fever, fatigue, body aches, headache, rash, loss of appetite, diarrhea, and vomiting.
Signs (that you see) “can include mild enlargement of the liver or spleen, swollen glands, and local swelling (a chagoma) where the parasite entered the body, the CDC explained.” (Source)
Chaga … is endemic to Mexico, Central America, and South America, where an estimated 8 million people have the illness, most of whom do not know they are infected. If untreated, infection is lifelong and can be life threatening, the CDC noted.
“People don’t normally feel sick,” Melissa Nolan Garcia, a research associate at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the lead author of two of three recently published studies, explained in a statement, “so they don’t seek medical care, but it ultimately ends up causing heart disease in about 30 percent of those who are infected.”
It is the second ? or chronic? phase that is deadly. Patients can develop cardiac complications, including an enlarged heart (cardiomyopathy), heart failure, altered heart rate or rhythm, and cardiac arrest (sudden death), as well as intestinal complications, such as an enlarged esophagus (megaesophagus) or colon (megacolon) and can lead to difficulties with eating or with passing stool.
“The concerning thing is that majority of the patients [I spoke to] are going to physicians, and the physicians are telling them, ‘No you don’t have the disease’,” researcher Melissa Nolan Garcia said, according to Al Jazeera America.
So far 2 deadly diseases — including the so-called EV-D68 pandemic — have been imported to America by illegal immigrants, thanks to President Obama’s open borders policy.
The EV-D68 enterovirus epidemic has infected thousands of U.S. children, killing at least 5 children.
