A deadly disease that can kill victims who may never know they were infected is to be targeted by University of Dundee scientists following a multi-million funding award. The experts aim to develop a new drug treatment for Chagas disease, which can live in a person’s body for decades before killing without warning.
The terrifying disease is estimated to affect millions of people, with current treatments both limited in effectiveness and coming with significant side-effects.
Dr Manu Rycker of Dundee’s School of Life Sciences, said: “Chagas diseases is particularly horrible as it lives in the body, with the victim completely unaware.
“Decades after being infected, a large number of people - around 30% - will go on to develop the disease, inflicting life-threatening damage to the heart, oesophagus and colon.
“It is the classic definition of a silent killer and the symptoms that a person has become infected tend to be only mild and similar to a mild cold or fever, meaning that people just tend to dismiss them.”
The researchers have now been awarded more than £4.4 million from the Wellcome Trust to fund the development of new drugs, supporting 14 jobs in Dundee.
Reports of Chagas disease in the UK are rare because of a lack of testing and general awareness, but there are likely to be thousands of cases in the country from those who have been infected elsewhere and subsequently migrated.
There is also a risk of a significant rise in years to come, particularly as global movement increases following the pandemic.
The World Health Organisation estimates that between six and seven million people around the world are infected with Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease.
They awake at night, biting exposed areas of skin and defecating nearby. The infection is spread when the person unwittingly smears the faeces into the open wound, or their eyes or mouth.
It can then subsequently be spread by blood transfusion and from mother to child.
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