Mother-to-Child Transmission of Congenital Chagas Disease, Japan - Volume 20, Number 1—January 2014 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

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Mother-to-Child Transmission of Congenital Chagas Disease, Japan - Volume 20, Number 1—January 2014 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC

Volume 20, Number 1—January 2014

Dispatch

Mother-to-Child Transmission of Congenital Chagas Disease, Japan

Article Contents

• The Patient
• Conclusions
• Acknowledgment
• References
• Figure
• Table 1
• Table 2
• Suggested Citation

Kazuo Imai, Takuya Maeda , Yusuke Sayama, Kei Mikita, Yuji Fujikura, Kazuhisa Misawa, Morichika Nagumo, Osamu Iwata, Takeshi Ono, Ichiro Kurane, Yasushi Miyahira, Akihiko Kawana, and Sachio Miura

Author affiliations: National Defense Medical College, Saitama, Japan (K. Imai, T. Maeda, K. Mikita, Y. Fujikura, K. Misawa, M. Nagumo, T. Ono, Y. Miyahira, A. Kawana); Japanese Red Cross Society, Tokyo, Japan (Y. Sayama, S. Miura); Tokai University Oiso Hospital, Kanagawa, Japan (O. Iwata); National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo (I. Kurane)

Suggested citation for this article

Abstract

We report a patient with congenital Chagas disease in Japan. This report reemphasizes the role of neglected and emerging tropical diseases in the era of globalization. It also indicates the need for increased vigilance for detecting Chagas disease in non–disease-endemic countries.

Chagas disease, which is caused by the pathogenic protozoa Trypanosoma cruzi, was previously endemic only to Central and South America but is now estimated to affect up to 10 million persons worldwide (1). Recent unprecedented trends in globalization have been accompanied by the migration of ≈14 million persons from disease-endemic regions to North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. Consequently, and as predicted, sporadic reports of patients with chronic Chagas disease have emerged, and documented cases have presumably been caused by chronically infected persons who migrated from disease-endemic countries (2). Despite the wide geographic spread of patients with Chagas disease, cases of congenital transmission in non–disease-endemic countries have been documented (Table 1) (3)

It is estimated that ≈300,000 immigrants from Latin America, to which Chagas disease is endemic, are currently living in Japan and that ≈34,000 births from these immigrants have occurred in the past 10 years. However, vertical transmission of the disease in Japan has not been detected, probably because of the lack of screening programs for at-risk pregnant women and the disregard for the silent clinical manifestation of congenital Chagas disease.

The World Health Organization recommends that each country should strengthen its national and regional capacity to prevent and control congenital transmission of infectious pathogens while improving case management (4). We report a patient with congenital Chagas disease in Japan. We also highlight the need for increasing awareness of congenital transmission and urge establishment of an appropriate diagnostic and treatment system for Chagas disease in nonendemic countries.

Acknowledgment

This study was partly supported by a grant for Research on Regulatory Science of Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, Japan (H23-iyaku-ippan-003).

References

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Figure

• Figure. [[caption]]

Tables

• Table 1. Patients with congenital Chagas disease in non–disease-endemic countries
• Table 2. Clinical course of a 13-year-old boy with congenital Chagas disease, Japan, after treatment with benznidazole

Suggested citation for this article: Imai K, Maeda T, Sayama Y, Mikita K, Fujikura Y, Misawa K, et al. Mother-to-child transmission of congenital Chagas disease, Japan. Emerg Infect Dis [Internet]. 2014 Jan [date cited]. http://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid2001.131071

DOI: 10.3201/eid2001.131071