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DENVER – According to Colorado, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the "kiss virus", or Triatoma sanguisuga, has been sighted in Colorado after entering the United States of Central and South America.
Insects can be carriers of a deadly disease called Chagas that can be transmitted to humans by a simple bite.
Health officials, doctors and insect specialists all told FOX31's problem-solving officials that they did not see the virus as a huge threat.
The insect is nicknamed for biting people around the mouth. Although the bite is often painless, insects can transmit parasites through their excrement.
"If they feed on the face, they risk defecating and their excrement could contain Chagas disease and that's how it would infect humans," said Eric Knutson of the Museum of Nature. and Colorado Science.
Dr. Andres Henao-Martinez of the Anshutz Medical Campus said that there had been patients with Chagas disease in Colorado. Henao-Martinez specializes in infectious diseases and says that every patient treated with Chagas acquired it in a foreign country, but was treated in the United States.
"About 10 years can go by until people develop certain symptoms," Henao-Martinez said. "People suffer from heart failure or arrhythmia and may suddenly die as a result of heart disease caused by this disease."
Still, many experts do not view the virus as an imminent threat to Coloradans, especially because insects spotted in Colorado are not suspected of carrying Chagas.
"I really think it's a good idea," Knutson said.
Kissing insects like to live in wooded areas. They are about an inch long. If you think you have chagas, doctors invite you to get tested and get treatment.
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