Acute Chagas disease

Diagnostic experience through an outbreak

Abstract

Chagas disease is a public health problem in Latin America, with a tendency to globalize due to migration phenomena. The acute phase of the disease tends to be indolent, but a low percentage of patients have an ominous course, especially when the route of transmission is oral, presenting as a prolonged febrile syndrome in the form of an epidemic outbreak. Early detection of the disease will probably avoid morbid outcomes and, in some cases, death. In this case report we summarize a diagnostic approach by describing the index case in an epidemic outbreak.