Long-term impacts of a ten-year intervention program on human and canine Trypanosoma cruzi infection in the Argentine Chaco.

CARDINAL MV; ENRIQUE GF; MACCHIAVERNA NP; ARGIBAY HD; FERNÁNDEZ MP; ALVEDRO A; GASPE MS; GÜRTLER RE

PLOS NEGLECTED TROPICAL DISEASES

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE

Lugar: San Francisco; Año: 2021 vol. 15 p. 9389 - 9389

1935-2735

BackgroundInterruption of domestic vector-borne transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi is still an unmetgoal in several American countries. In 2007 we launched a long-term intervention programaimed to suppress house infestation with the main domestic vector in southern South America(Triatoma infestans) and domestic transmission in Pampa del Indio, a resource-constrained,hyperendemic municipality with 1446 rural houses inhabited by Creole andindigenous people, in the Argentine Chaco ecoregion. Here, we assessed whether the 10-year insecticide-based program combined with community mobilization blocked vectorbornedomestic transmission of T. cruzi to humans and dogs.MethodsWe carried out two municipality-wide, cross-sectional serosurveys of humans and dogs(considered sentinel animals) during 2016?2017 to compare with baseline data. We used arisk-stratified random sampling design to select 273 study houses; 410 people from 180households and 492 dogs from 151 houses were examined for antibodies to T. cruzi usingat least two serological methods.ResultsThe seroprevalence of T. cruzi in children aged