Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association © The Author 2008; all rights reserved.
Commentary: Chagas disease: 100 years since discovery and lessons for the future
1 Department of Ecology, Genetics and Evolution, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2 Centro de Pesquisas René Rachou, FIOCRUZ, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
3 Department of Environmental Studies, Emory University, Atlanta, USA.
*Corresponding author. Department of Ecology, Genetics and Evolution, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina. E-mail: gurtler@ege.fcen.uba.ar
Accepted 3 June 2008
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On April 14, 1909, the 29-year-old Brazilian physician Carlos Ribeiro Justiniano das Chagas (1879–1934) examined Berenice, a 2-year-old girl with signs of an acute infection including persistent fever and swollen face. Based on research conducted over the previous months, Berenice came to be the first human case of a new disease entity and a new parasite.1
In 1900, the Earth's human population was 1.7 billion, and most people lived in rural areas.2,3 Much of the world population lived in poverty and this continued to be the case through the 20th century. Infectious diseases were rampant, and mean life expectancy was about 30 years. The vector-borne mode of transmission of malaria, yellow fever and sleeping sickness had recently been demonstrated by Ronald Ross, Carlos Finlay, Walter Reed, David Bruce and others. In Brazil, with 10 million inhabitants, yellow fever, malaria, plague and smallpox curtailed economic and social progress. Expansion of the
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