Is it likely that CO2 will cause a Chagas disease epidemic in the U.S.? There have been seven cases identified so far, and only four of those cases occurred before Ronald Reagan left office

With climate change, US could face risk from Chagas disease

Only seven cases of Chagas disease transmitted by kissing bugs have been documented in the United States.

"We think the actual transmission is higher than the seven cases we have identified," says Patricia Dorn, an expert on Chagas disease at Loyola University and co-author on the new study, "but, even with these findings, we think the transmission of Chagas — of the T. cruzi parasite — is still very low in the US."

...But could those more-dangerous kissing bug species move north as the climate warms?

"Absolutely," says Dorn.

"We know the bugs are already across the bottom two-thirds of the U.S., so the bugs are here, the parasites are here. Very likely with climate change they will shift further north and the range of some species will extend," she says.

Chagas in the U.S.A.

In the summer of 2006, we discovered the first human case of insect-transmitted Chagas parasite in Louisiana and the sixth ever in the United States. Of the previous five cases, three occurred in Texas in infants, two in 1955 and the other in 1983. The fourth case occurred in a 56-year-old California woman in 1982. The fifth case occurred in rural Tennessee in 1998 in an 18-month-old child. The bug was found in the child's crib, and the infection was detected by PCR and treated during the acute stage. Another case of an infant in Texas is currently under investigation.