Transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi during pregnancy is estimated to
occur in less than 20% of infected mothers; however, the etiopathogenesis is not
completely understood. The Centre for Studies on Chagas Disease provides confirmation
of T. cruzi infection for individuals living in central Brazil.
In this retrospective hospital-based study, all requests for diagnosis of T.
cruzi infection in individuals less than 21 years old from 1994-2014 were
searched. We end with 1,211 individuals and their respective infected mothers.
Congenital transmission of infection was confirmed in 24 individuals (2%) in central
Brazil, an area where the main T. cruzi lineage circulating in
humans is TcII. This low prevalence of congenital Chagas disease is discussed in
relation to recent findings in the south region of Brazil, where TcV is the main
lineage and congenital transmission has a higher prevalence (approximately 5%),
similar to frequencies reported in Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia. This is the first
report to show geographical differences in the rates of congenital transmission
of T. cruzi and the relationship between the prevalence of
congenital transmission and the type of Tc prevalent in each region.
Ten Trypanosoma cruzi stocks recently isolated from patients in acute and chronic phases of Chagas disease were inoculated to susceptible (A/Sn) mice. The mice were inoculated with 10(4) trypomastigotes intraperitoneally and monitored for parasitaemia and mortality for up to 300 d. The results demonstrated that (i) T. cruzi stocks isolated from patients in the acute phase killed animals, while stocks from patients in the chronic phase did not; (ii) survival curves differed statistically among mice infected with lethal stocks, and (iii) parasite burden did not affect the mortality rate of mice.
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