http://www.suntimes.com/output/health/c ... rt281.html

Tropical disease reported in 2 transplant recipients who died
July 28, 2006


ATLANTA -- Two U.S. heart transplant patients who died earlier this year had contracted a parasitic tropical disease from their new organs, health officials reported Thursday.

The two California men are the fourth and fifth U.S. patients believed to have been infected with Chagas' disease through transplants, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most do not get sick

Organ donors are screened for Chagas' in South America, where the disease is much more common. No screening test for Chagas' is licensed in the United States.

The two men, ages 64 and 73, died at separate Los Angeles hospitals. The infected organs came from one person born in Central America and another who had traveled to Mexico, the CDC reported.

Chagas' disease can cause high fever, swelling, enlargement of the spleen, liver and lymph nodes, and inflammation of the heart.

Most people infected do not get sick, but the disease can be fatal and can be especially dangerous to people with suppressed immune systems. Transplant patients receive immune-suppressing drugs to prevent organ rejection.

Chagas' is spread by reduviid bugs. They are called ''kissing bugs'' because they often bite people in the face. The bugs' feces contain a parasite that can get pushed beneath the skin when people scratch themselves or rub their eyes.

About 12 million people in Central and South America are infected with Chagas', but only 100,000 U.S. residents have it, according to rough estimates.