The Louisiana Department of Health is warning Louisianans to be on the lookout for the penny sized “kissing bug”, whose bite can carry the rare, but nasty Chagas disease.
LDH vector-borne diseases epidemiologist Julius Tonzel says the Triatomine bugs are known to break into poorly maintained houses, and feast on unsuspecting sleepers.
“The bug will come out at night, crawl on your face, and while it is taking a “blood meal” it will defecate. If the infected feces gets into an open word wound, or any other muscosal membrane, that’s when the actual infection happens.”
The alert was triggered by the Center for Disease control, that just confirmed a case of the disease in Delaware last year.
The best way to keep the bugs out is to fix any holes in your home that lead to the outside, and Tonzel says you can identify the disease carrying “kissing bug” by it’s long, thin legs, and earthy brown or black outside with red stripes…
“It’s roughly about the size of a penny, and you can really distinguish the bug because it has a cone shaped head. It’s very narrow at the top, and widens as it get towards the base of the body.”
The state has only seen 13 confirmed cases within our borders since cases first began being recognized.
Chagas symptoms can take weeks to appear, and can feel very much like the flu initially. Tonzel says after that, it could be quite some time before the long term effects are felt, but they could ultimately be fatal.
“It could be 20 to 30 years before you develop any other symptoms. If you do develop any other symptoms you enter the chronic phase, where you see people who have been having some cardiac issues, which could ultimately lead to heart failure.”
Over time the disease has been documented in 11 parishes, as far north as Caddo, and as far south as Terrebonne.
