Open AccessSeroprevalence of Chagas Infection in the Donor Population
Author(s) -
Ben A. Zaniello,
Deborah A. Kessler,
Katherine M. Vine,
Kathleen M. Grima,
Scott A. Weisenberg
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
plos neglected tropical diseases
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.99
H-Index - 135
eISSN - 1935-2735
pISSN - 1935-2727
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pntd.0001771
Subject(s) - seroprevalence , chagas disease , medicine , population , trypanosoma cruzi , metropolitan area , latin americans , demography , serology , immunology , environmental health , pathology , antibody , parasite hosting , linguistics , philosophy , sociology , world wide web , computer science
We retrospectively calculated the prevalence and epidemiologic characteristics of Chagas infection in the New York blood donor population over three years utilizing the New York Blood Center's database of the New York metropolitan area donor population. Seventy Trypanosoma cruzi positive donors were identified from among 876,614 donors over a 3-year period, giving an adjusted prevalence of 0.0083%, with 0.0080% in 2007, 0.0073% in 2008, and 0.0097% in 2009. When filtered only for self-described “Hispanic/Latino” donors, there were 52 Chagas positive donors in that 3-year period (among 105,122 self-described Hispanic donors) with an adjusted prevalence of 0.052%, with 0.055% in 2007, 0.047% in 2008, and 0.053% in 2009. In conclusion, we found a persistent population of patients with Chagas infection in the New York metropolitan area donor population. There was geographic localization of cases which aligned with Latin American immigration clusters.