Abstract
Congenital Chagas disease is considered a form of dispersion of Trypanosoma cruzi related to human migration from endemic, often rural to previously non-endemic urban areas. This fact increases the Chagas disease establishment risk inside of family members by vertical transmission pathway. Congenital Chagas disease cases in newborns could not identified by the health professional even in endemic regions. Here we present the first family cluster of Chagas disease cases from Chiapas: one of the most important endemic areas in South of Mexico, where vertical T. cruzi transmission incidence rate is ranged between 2% to 22% revealing an important public health problem. Two cases inside a family from Chiapas, México with positive antibodies against T. cruzi detected by ELISA are presented; one of them got the infection through vertical pathway. We think that congenital Chagas disease should not be ignored in a newborn born from an asymptomatic Chagas disease mother, who may transmit the parasite infection randomly.
