The Case of Chagas: Calling for an Applied Anthropology of Infectious Disease

VICTORIA RAMENZONI; MONTEBAN, MADALENA; SUSAN TANNER

Santa Fe

Encuentro; Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology; 2009

Society for Applied Anthropology

Chagas is listed as one of the most neglected diseases in Latin America. It reflects thousands of years of interactions between humans and the parasite Trypanosoma Cruzi. Approximately 28 million people are at risk of contracting the disease, but social sciences and anthropology have paid little attention to its study. As many other parasitic infections, Chagas displays a complex progression that can lead to chronic impairment and death. Treatment is only effective during its initial stages and prevention can be achieved through vector control and blood screening. We present a survey of public health and anthropology literature on Chagas to explore the role of political and economic history in shaping both disease processes and how the disease is conceived through international and regional institutional discourses. The research specifically considers the importance of migration, territorialization, and the application of labels of ?neglected? and ?re-emergent disease? to understand Chagas etiology. Such terms influence intervention programs and project different visions about the disease and the possibility of its eradication. Chagas is not a forgotten disease; rather those who suffer from it have been forgotten by history and governments. Current biomedical perspectives and health initiatives do not incorporate ethnomedical knowledge or the wealth of traditional experience that has emerged from human disease interaction. We conclude that an anthropological perspective is urgently needed to achieve a multidisciplinary approach that: 1) considers the long histories of relations between humans and Chagas; and 2) can actively contribute to health campaigns by including ethnomedical accounts.