rising@utzoo.uucp (Jim Rising) (08/26/89)
Chagas' disease is caused by Trypanosoma cruzi, which is carred by a number of different reduviid bugs, esp. Triatoma infestans, T. sordida and a couple of others. Transmission to man & other vertebrates is by the contaminative posterior section. The bugs apparently defecate frequently while they are biting the person, and the bite wound is readily contaminated. My understanding was that this was particularly probable if the person scratched the wound, rubbing the feces in--but the book that I am looking at does not say that. In any event, that is what I meant by "mechanical". In any event, the bug does not "inject" the trypanosome into the host, as Craig correctly states. Back to my other posting, why couldn't mosquitos transmit AIDS via their saliva (i.e. as opposed to passing blood from one person to the next) if the virus could replicate in the mosquito? Is the point that so far as we know it doesn't? __Jim Rising -- Name: Jim Rising Mail: Dept. Zoology, Univ. Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A1 UUCP: uunet!attcan!utzoo!rising BITNET: rising@utzoo.utoronto.bitnet