Skip to content
Research Article Open access CC BY 3.0

Prevalence of Antibody to Trypanosoma cruzi in Women Delivering Infants at Parkland Health and Hospital System, Dallas, Texas, USA

Paul M. Southern

International Journal of TROPICAL DISEASE & Health · pp. 169–174 · Published 12 Apr 2013

10.9734/IJTDH/2013/3136

Abstract

Recent increases in the immigration of persons from Latin America into North America, particularly from regions endemic for Chagas disease, suggest the possibility that pregnant women may be latently infected with Trypanosoma cruzi. This study was undertaken to assess the magnitude of seropositivity in parturient women in our institution. Umbilical cord blood was collected from Hispanic surnamed women delivering infants at Parkland Health and Hospital System (PHHS), the public hospital serving Dallas County, Texas, and affiliated with UT Southwestern. When possible the specimens were collected from consecutive deliveries. Serum was tested for antibodies to Trypanosoma cruzi by commercial systems. Two hundred delivering women were tested as described. Of those tested, 4 were found to be positive for T. cruzi antibody (2%). This confirms a potential risk for transplacental transmission of T. cruzi in populations residing outside the traditional endemic zone, such as those seeking medical care at PHHS.

Trypanosoma cruzi chagas disease maternal transmission Dallas Texas

Cited by 0

No indexed citations yet.

Article metrics

Real usage data collected on this platform.

0

Page views

0

PDF downloads

0

Outbound clicks

0

Citations

Views by country

Approximate, from request IP at view time — not citizenship or institution. Countries with fewer than 5 views are grouped as "Other".

No views recorded yet.

Traffic sources

Referring site, by host.

No traffic recorded yet.

Views and downloads exclude known bots/crawlers. Citations combines this platform's own DOI-resolved index with each external source's own reported total — see Cited by above for individually listed citing works. Last refreshed 0 seconds ago.