Infections by Trypanosoma cruzi are transmitted commonly by triatomines,
hematophagous insects adapted to anthropophilic behavior. With its potential enzootic
presence for over 90 million years, Chagas disease in humans has been documented in 9
thousand-year-old mummies from the Atacama Desert. Lately, Chagas disease has shown
exponential growth because European and African colonizers dwelling in huts infested by
triatomines contaminated with T. cruzi were promptly infected. Nowadays, Chagas disease
affects 18 million people and is considered the most lethal endemic infectious disease in the
Western Hemisphere.
