Through its impact on worker productivity, premature disability, and death, Chagas disease accounts for 670,000 disability-adjusted life years per annum [1]. This makes it the most important parasitic disease of the Americas. It is both a disease of poverty (Figures 1 and 2) and, like other neglected tropical diseases, also “poverty promoting” [2]. Traditionally confined to Latin America, Chagas disease is becoming an important health issue in the United States and Europe. First, due to the continuous influx of immigrants from disease-endemic countries in Latin America, a proportion of whom are infected with Trypanosoma cruzi, an increasing number of infected subjects are seen in clinical practice, whether, for example, through routine screening of US blood and organ banks [3] or physicians' offices in Europe [4]. The appearance of T. cruzi in US blood banks led to the implementation of the first Food and Drug Administration–approved diagnostic blood screening test for Chagas disease earlier this year [5]. Second, an increasing number of autochthonous Chagas disease cases have been reported in the US [6,7], which may mirror the increased reporting of T. cruzi infection in domestic animals and wildlife. Recognizing that Chagas disease can no longer be considered an “exotic” disease in the US, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene held a clinical course in Chagas disease prior to its 2007 annual meeting (http://www.astmh.org/meetings/premeeting.cfm#clinical).
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