Thursday, March 15, 2007

This is NOT good

Another reason to be concerned about the influx of illegal immigrants into the US.

Parasite is a growing concern for healthcare professionals
In Latin America, about 10 million to 12 million people are believed to be infected with the Chagas parasite. As many as 1 million of them are expected to die from the disease unless there are advances in treatment, according to Dr. James Maguire, a University of Maryland expert on the disease.

"Chagas is very, very prevalent in South and Central America," said Marek Nowicki, a USC blood-disease expert who studied the effect of Chagas on the Southern California organ supply with the National Institute of Transplantation.

"The number of [immigrant] Latinos in Southern California, Texas and other parts of the United States are growing, but especially in L.A., a large proportion of organ donors are Latino," Nowicki said. "They're basically bringing with them the disease prevalence in the area they used to live."


None of those entering the US via the illegal path across the Mexican border have had any kind of medical screening and most of those coming over the southern border have to be suspected carriers of this parasite.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

And I though hepatitis was the great concern. Yikes.