What is the Impact of Chagas Disease on the Productivity in Latin America?
Chagas disease is an endemic that affects Latin America and is the world’s leading cause of heart disease. To understand the impact of Chagas Disease it is necessary to understand the characteristics of this disease. The Chagas disease spreads through the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi by blood transfusion or by a bite of the reduviid bug also named “kissing bug” for its tendency to attack around the lips of humans. The health risk of being infected is associated with poor living conditions of overcrowded housing made of local natural materials such as wood, mud, and straw, these materials make the perfect breeding ground for the bug. About 100 million people are at risk
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With more than sixty percent of the population presently settled in urban areas, infected individuals are migrating to the USA and Europe. An estimated 100,000 infected individuals living in the USA immigrated from Mexico and Central America. The infectious risk that these individuals pose to the non-endemic areas is mainly through blood transfusion, as the infected individuals donate blood unaware that they are infected.
Productivity Impact of Chagas Disease
Around 752,000 working days per year are lost due to the infections caused by Chagas disease in just the seven South American countries. A study of absenteeism in Brazil estimated loses caused by this disease of at least $5.6 million per year. In addition, the medical costs for treatment of infected individuals add up to this cost by several times this amount. Untreated, the disease results in disability affecting the households as the infected individuals become a financial burden reducing the quality of life of the whole family.
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In addition, people affected by the disease see a decrease on their living standards placing a burden in the whole family. Strategies to eradicate the disease implemented by the WHO have been effective. However, additional strategies are available to improve the eradication of the disease. Investment to improve housing and to conduct drug research for treatment would not only improve productivity, but will also improve the quality of life for people. Lastly, countries affected by the disease should implement routine screening for Chagas in their blood banks in order to prevent further
A portion of the illnesses that the Locals abruptly needed to manage are chicken pox, measles, typhus, jungle fever, whooping hack and little pox. Since huge numbers of these maladies were transferable through air and touch, this made it much less demanding for these sicknesses to be transmitted from individual to individual. Out of the considerable number of sicknesses little pox seemed to have been the most decimating to the Locals. One of the fundamental explanations behind this was it was frequently misdiagnosed for being another
While Farmer is in Peru with Partners in Health he discovers that the problems faced in Haiti are seen there as well. While searching for the root of one case of MDR-TB in Peru, Farmer realizes that the strain had come to be by repeated improper therapy. This was due in part to the economic status of the patients. Their poverty led them to contract a disease that was untreatable, and furthermore, led to deaths that could have been stopped. While working for the MDR-TB patients, Farmer risked aggravating powerful people throughout the world because of a speech he made about the “myths of MDR-TB.”
In Rio de Janeiro, the newspapers were only concerned with the spread of the flu (Doc 4). The historical context that this article took place in South America shows the negligence of medical centers. The flu had been known to the world as well as the alarming rate of the spread of it, yet there were no medicals safety precautions being taken place. By time the flu and reached South America, medical facilities had the chance to make safety precautions as to stop the spreading of the virus. The same angry reaction occured in British Samoa as the newspapers blamed the British government for neglecting to issue isolation when influenza had spread to Samoa (Doc
In the 09/11, Pentagon attack that left an indelible mark on American history faced similar challenges. The leadership was ineffective and no immediate action was taken to deal with the terror attack. The government had no planning team to determine what to do with such a catastrophe. Donald Rumsfeld, a civilian Defense Secretary, claims that it was not his responsibility to protect the homeland against such attacks but was rather that of law enforcement. Vice President Dick Cheney was to be in charge of the domestic terrorism investigation group.
The exact number of deaths that resulted from the spread of disease is hard to calculate, but it has been “estimated that upwards of 80–95 percent of the Native American population was decimated within the first 100–150 years following 1492” and in just 50 years, the people of the island Hispañola were practically extinct. The island had once had a population estimated between 60,000 and 8 million (The Columbian Exchange: A History…). By wiping out the populations of some places, and seriously harming other populations, the Columbian Exchange has had the negative effect of mass death. Had those diseases not spread from the Old World to the New, lots of the places that were depopulized would likely be thriving even more
The bacillus infects people through the bite of infected fleas and rats (“BLACK DEATH”). This was especially prominent in urban and over populated areas (“Ecology and Transmission“). When Plagues strike people and animals alike die horrifically, in turn fleas need to find other sources of food. The people living in poor conditions often get forayed by flea bites, thus infecting them (“Ecology and Transmission“). It was seldom for the Black Death to be spread from person to person.
The spread of diseases was possibly the most dramatic and immediate impact of the Columbian Exchange. The effect was horrific in places where the local population had no or little resistance, particularly in the Americas. Indigenous populations thrived across North and South America prior to contact. The list of infectious diseases that spread from the Old World to the New is long; the major killers include smallpox, measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, bubonic plague, typhus, and malaria. The impact was most severe in the Caribbean, where by 1600 Native American populations on most islands had collapsed by more than 99 percent.
The contagions held by these creatures consisted of: measles, chicken pox, malaria and yellow fever. Some American diseases that were transferred back to the old world include Chagas disease and supposedly, Syphilis. Although they did have some impact on European populous the effects were seemingly insignificant compared to the impact of the European diseases on the Native
One of the biggest summer nuisance would be the mosquito, but more specifically the Ades aegypti mosquito. The Aedes aegypti is the vector for yellow fever and the cause of the numerous deaths. In her book The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic the Shaped Our History, Molly Caldwell Crosby presents the idea that the mosquito is not just the only reason an epidemic occurred in the 18th century. This story accounts for the disease that broke out across the world and nearly destroyed almost all of North America’s population, which some believe could have been avoided by simple quarantine analysis and sanitary methods.
Many of these diseases included smallpox, chickenpox, tuberculosis, leprosy, and even the measles. An interesting thing is that the europeans had also brought over malaria to the Incas, in the later years, and they Incas actually
The Colonisation of Latin America had a major negative impact on these indigenous people as the arrival in Latin America collided with 12,000 years of isolation from Eurasia which imposed many diseases on the natives. The natives were unable to fight of these diseases as they did not have the immune system for these types of sickness nor the appropriate medicine so many of them died as a result. These diseases included small pox, measles and influenza, bubonic plagues, cholera and tropical
Among the many things spread and shared in the Columbian Exchange, the trading of diseases is perhaps the most significant. The natives of the Americas had never experienced the serious diseases that European explorers carried over to the New World. From smallpox to influenza and malaria to cholera, Native American populations were drastically decreased due to their poor immunity. Between the numerous amounts of European diseases, though, measles was the most remarkable in that its effects were both widespread and enduring. Measles, also known as rubeola, is a respiratory infection caused by the measles virus.
Once an individual acquired the infection, within thirty hours, most would be dead. But, could something like this actually benefit Americans and their society? Most people would say that 675,000 deaths never improves a country, but in America’s
While the exact statistics of missed work days/hours for those not vaccinated is difficult to ascertain, studies have found that are 86% of healthcare professionals have reported leaving work if they have influenza and 59% recall cases in the past where they worked despite having influenza like symptoms (Dubov 2533). Effects of missed work days are financial and resource burden for the hospital due to personnel calling in sick which are then filled by registry staffing. Hospital policy often prohibits working without vaccinations which can cause shortfalls in staffing and requires healthcare workers to sign a vaccination declination form (Dubov
The Europeans spread Smallpox to South America infecting and killing these native tribes. Although the europeans did bring different healthcare advantages to these countries and continents the healthcare wasn’t brought for these areas. The Europeans advancements in healthcare for themselves not for the countries they visited. Along with