What You Should Know About the ‘Kissing Bug’ Disease

Millions of people around the world are estimated to have Chagas disease , a potentially fatal, parasitic illness that can lie dormant for years after the initial infection.

Some 280,000 people in the U.S. are among them, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but the disease is not officially considered endemic to the country like it is in 21 others in the Americas. Public health experts argued in a report published in this month’s issue of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Emerging Infectious Diseases journal that it should be.

“Increasing evidence” of the parasites that cause Chagas disease “challenges that nonendemic label,” the experts wrote, noting that “kissing bugs,” which can transmit the parasite to humans, have been identi