Girl bitten by blood-sucking ‘kissing bug’ inside her home
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A Delaware girl was bitten by a blood-sucking kissing bug inside her home, the first time the insect, which can transmit the fatal Chagas disease, was found in the state — disturbing evidence that the deadly pest is making its way north from South and Central America, officials said.
The insect bit the girl on her face while she watched TV in the bedroom of her Kent County home last July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement last week.
DELAWARE GIRL BITTEN BY INFAMOUS BLOOD-SUCKING KISSING BUG
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Her parents reached out to the Delaware Division of Public Health and the Delaware Department of Agriculture for help in identifying the insect — because they were concerned about possible disease transmission, the organization said.
The agencies, together with researchers at Texas A&M University’s Kissing Bug Citizen Science program and the CDC, identified the pest as a kissing bug — whose scientific name is Triatoma sanguisuga.
This bug, commonly known as a triatomine, spreads Chagas, a disease that originated in Latin America. (REUTERS)
In September, the CDC warned that the insects were headed north from South and Central America and had already been found in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland, Delaware Online reported.
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The insect has the disgusting tendency to target humans’ faces for its meals, and can transmit the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi that causes Chagas disease — a rare condition that can cause serious cardiac and gastrointestinal complications, and sometimes death, according to the CDC.
Luckily, the girl who was bitten last year did not become ill.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}About 300,000 people with Chagas disease live in the US, and most were infected with the parasite in the parts of Latin America where the disease is more common, according to the CDC report.
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Only a few cases of Chagas disease have been confirmed from contact with the insects on American soil, the CDC noted.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Although the kissing bug has been confirmed in the Delaware case, there is no current evidence of the infecting parasite in the state, according to the organization.