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Blogging from Bolivia
Friday, December 4, 2009
By: MIchael Nyenhuis
Someone Needs to Care
"Bolivia
doesn't care about Chagas disease. They know they have a high incidence, but
they don't care."
That
strong statement comes from a young Bolivian physician who does care. He
is Dr. Juan Manuel Avon Torrico, the physician at MAP Bolivia's clinic in the
community of Chilimarca. In his short career he has researched the disease and
treated its victims.
Chagas,
Dr. Torrico knows, is called a "Neglected Tropical Disease" (NTDs)
for a reason. Too few people and governments take it seriously. When stacked up
against the high profile diseases of malaria, respiratory illness and HIV/AIDS,
Chagas and the other NTDs just don't make it on the radar screen, even though
more than one billion people suffer from them every year.
How
many people are affected by Chagas in Bolivia? No one knows, Dr. Torrico said.
"Bolivia doesn't have good statistics on Chagas."
Here
is what is known: a bug called the Vinchuca infects thousands of people in
Bolivia - perhaps up to one third of the population. The disease attacks a
specific branch of the heart and deteriorates it over time, causing premature
death. Typically, people die from Chagas- related heart disease in their 50s in
Bolivia.
This
is one of Chagas' problems. It doesn't kill children. It kills adults. Somehow
that doesn't seem as urgent. But its cost to families, to the country's
productivity and its added burden on the health care system are significant.
Consider
this: at the hospital where Dr. Torrico served after graduating from medical
school in 2007, Chagas-related heart disease was the second leading killer of
adults. Seeing this devastation up close caused Dr. Torrico to want to learn
more. He designed a research project to look at the incidence in children. He
studied 133 children who tested positive for Chagas and found that 35 percent
of them already had damage to their hearts. The kids were age 4 to 14. Chagas
might take years to kill it's victims, but it starts early.
What
Bolivia needs, Dr. Torrico said, are the kinds of prevention programs MAP has
carried out to educate families about the threat of the Vinchuca bugs that
infest their homes and help with the remodeling of their adobe mud brick
homes to chase the bugs away. Then, he said, the country needs a more
aggressive early detection and treatment program.
The
good news is that Chagas can be treated. A one-month drug treatment course
early enough in life can stop the disease and the early deaths it causes. The
treatment is relatively expensive by Bolivia standards - $50 - but that is a
small price to pay to avoid the costs later - if anyone cares.
Dr.
Torrico does, and he is now serving in an organization that does, too.
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