Researchers Trying To Track Third World Infections In U.S.

May 14, 2010 -- Researchers and legislators are trying to determine just how far some obscure but deadly third world diseases have penetrated into the United States.

Studies in recent years have shown that diseases typically confined to less-developed countries have entered the United States, coming over the border or arising in places where conditions abruptly changed, like post-Katrina Louisiana. But poverty and a lack of access to healthcare have made it hard to determine how severe the problem might be.

"The poverty in the U.S. tends to concentrate in certain pockets," said Dr. Peter Hotez, chair of the department of microbiology, immunology and tropical medicine at George Washington University Medical Center. He cited the Mississippi delta, post-Katrina Louisiana, the border region with Mexico and U.S. inner cities: "Those particular areas, for all practical purposes, resemble a developing country."

Some of the diseases that are part of this surveillance effort include Chagas disease, caused by ticks that can cause heart enlargement and ultimately death; trichomoniasis, a sexually transmitted disease that can cause inflammation and difficulty urinating; and toxocariasis, which is spread via infected dog feces in soil and can cause vision and breathing problems and developmental delays.

Some of these diseases, which Hotez calls the neglected infections of poverty, can spread among people through sexual transmission or via blood. However, they stay mostly under the radar because, at least for now, more affluent Americans are unlikely to contract these diseases.

"These diseases are not occurring among people in the suburbs," said Hotez.

Substandard housing and dirty soil, like that found in sandboxes in urban playgrounds, are the preferred residences of the critters that can cause these infections.

Many of the diseases may go misdiagnosed when infected people do make it to a doctor.

A recent effort to make a survey of the prevalence of these diseases was sponsored in the House version of the health care reform bill by Reps. Gene Green (D-Texas) and Hank Johnson (D-Georgia). The amendment was dropped during reconciliation to pass the Senate version of the bill.

Scott Goldstein, legislative director for Johnson's office, said that efforts would continue to get a survey of the infectious diseases covered in the original amendment as a stand-alone bill.

"Once we [complete the survey] we can have a better idea whether new guidelines need to be issued," he said. "The researchers we've talked to have said it's quite possible these things have been out there in the United States."

Johnson's district includes parts of Atlanta, where many may be infected.

"We have some significant areas where people are very poor in our district, but that's not unique to our district," Goldstein said.

"Once people learn about it, I don't think it will be tough to get people to sign on," he said.

Although the Congressional Budget Office did not score the amendment as part of the original bill, the study would likely cost a few million dollars.