CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Chagas Disease is caused by the parasitic protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. Around 70 million people in the region of the Americas are at risk for Chagas Disease and approximately 5.7 million are infected annually, causing 12,000 deaths per year. Moreover, 21 countries in the region are endemic for Chagas Disease with an annual incidence of 28,000 cases. T. cruzi is transmitted by the infected feces of blood-sucking bugs of the subfamily Triatominae, by blood transfusions and organ transplants from infected donors, vertically from an infected mother to child during pregnancy or childbirth, orally by the accidental ingestion of food contaminated with T. cruzi (PAHO/WHO webpage).In Argentina, the main vector for this disease is Triatoma infestans. In the last decades, triatomine bugs in Argentina were controlled through the use of pyrethroids like deltamethrin, alphamethrin, cypermethrin, λ-cyhalothrin, β-cyfluthrin and β-cypermethrin. The continuous use of these insecticides has exerted a strong selective pressure that has led to the appearance of resistant insects in focal areas of the country. In Argentina, the first record of chemical control failures for triatomines caused by high levels of resistance to pyrethroids were from samples collected in Salvador Mazza, Salta province (Picollo et al., 2005).The monitoring of resistance to insecticides in T. infestans was started in 2014, as part of a program for entomological vector surveillance and control of T. infestans that Mundo Sano implements since 2002 in urban and surrounding rural areas of Añatuya (Santiago del Estero, Argentina).The objective of adding this component was to evaluate the susceptibility of T. infestans samples from rural areas of Añatuya to the pyrethroid deltamethrin, active ingredient found in the most widely used formulations for triatomine control.