Searching for the nexus between transmission cycles of Trypanosoma cruzi in arid ecosystems

ACTIS, E.; JAHN, G.A.; GÜRTLER, R.E.; SUPERINA, M.

San Luis

Congreso; XXXII Reunión Anual de la Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo; 2014

Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo

Trypanosoma cruzi is the etiologic agent of Chagas disease, a vector-borne zoonosis endemic of the Americas that affects 10 million people and kills more than 10000 every year. The pichi (Zaedyus pichiy, Mammalia: Xenarthra), reservoir host for T. cruzi, is a small armadillo endemic of arid and semi-arid lands of Argentina and Chile. Pichis have semi-fossorial habits, being omnivores that feed primarily on insects. Pichis are one of the most-hunted species by poachers in Mendoza province, Argentina, which has led to their listing as Near Threatened in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Rural people and their domestic animals constantly interact with pichis. Pichis are intensely used as a protein source by rural people, sheepdogs hunt pichis, and goats graze in the habitat of pichis and wild vectors (triatomine bugs) of Chagas disease. Due to interaction between different domestic and wild reservoir hosts and vectors, domestic and sylvatic transmission cycles can interrelate and overlap, providing the pathogens the possibility to migrate from one cycle to the other. We are currently carrying out an eco-epidemiological study in Mendoza. Pichis, goats, and sheepdogs are being screened for T. cruzi in three different landscape units: north (Chacoan monte), south (Patagonian steppe) and center of the province (ecotone between both ecosystems), whilst laboratory analyses are being carried out at IMBECU (Institute of Experimental Medicine and Biology-CONICET). Our main objective is to study possible mechanisms that could cause the overlapping of both cycles. We believe that a real understanding of the problematic by the resource-poor local communities will contribute to better understand complex public health issues that affects them, and so also it will decrease pichi hunting increasing its chances of long-term survival. From the point of view of Conservation Medicine, we seek to understand interplays between the health of rural people, and wild and domestic animals living in arid ecosystems.