Publications by authors named "Z Diaz-Bello"
Article Synopsis
- Chagas disease (ChD) is a significant health issue in Latin America, with a focus on whether orally transmitted infections correlate with a higher risk of developing chronic Chagasic cardiopathy (CCC).
- A study over 10 years involving 106 patients from a 2007 outbreak showed initial improvement in health post-treatment, with no deaths due to ChD after the acute phase.
- By the end of the study, there were no new cases classified as CCC, and the incidence of various heart-related issues decreased, though some children continued to show persistent conditions.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates the treatment failure of oral Chagas disease (oCD) in Venezuela, despite close supervision of patients receiving nitroheterocyclic drugs since its emergence in 2007.
- Researchers analyzed blood samples and hemoculture isolates from nine patients, identifying significant genetic variability in parasite populations before and after treatment.
- Findings suggest a connection between poor drug response and the presence of resistant parasite clones, emphasizing the importance of understanding drug susceptibility for effective treatment guidelines in the region.
Trypanosoma cruzi uses various mechanisms of infection to access humans. Since 1967, food contaminated with metacyclic trypomastigotes has triggered several outbreaks of acute infection of Chagas disease by oral transmission. Follow-up studies to assess the effectiveness of anti-parasitic treatment of oral outbreaks are rather scarce.
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- Our findings showed significant decreases in IgG antibody levels and parasite loads after treatment, indicating a shift from acute to chronic infection without full recovery, suggesting treatment failure.
- Furthermore, the genetic variability of the parasites decreased over time, with no identical parasite signatures found pre- and post-treatment in the same patient, highlighting a selection process affecting the infection.
Accurate diagnostic tools and surrogate markers of parasitologic response to treatment are needed for managing Chagas disease. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) is used for treatment monitoring, but variability in copy dosage and sequences of molecular target genes among different Trypanosoma cruzi strains limit the precision of quantitative measures. To improve qPCR quantification accuracy, we designed and evaluated a synthetic DNA molecule containing a satellite DNA (satDNA) repeat unit as standard for quantification of T.
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