ArticlePLoS neglected tropical diseases2025
Fate of Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease, in bed bugs after oral ingestion or intrathoracic injection.
Article in PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Bacteria in stable fly (Diptera: Muscidae) feces inform foraging decisions of conspecific flies.Journal of medical entomology · 2026Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, transmitted by kissing bugs, causes Chagas disease in millions of people in Central and South America. Here we studied potential transmission of T. cruzi by common bed bugs, Cimex lectularius. Trypanosoma cruzi populations in bed bugs were monitored after oral ingestion or intrathoracic injection, with parasite presence in tissues and excreta analyzed microscopically. Natural feeding and defecation behaviors were also observed. After bed bugs ingested T. cruzi-infected blood, the T. cruzi population in their anterior midgut steadily declined during days 1-7 but increased in their posterior midgut/hindgut and in their feces during days 4-7 and 7-10, respectively. No live or dead T. cruzi were observed in the bed bugs' proboscis, salivary glands, and hemolymph, suggesting they did not breach the midgut. When bed bugs were injected intrathoracically with T. cruzi at a low concentration (103 parasites/mL), no parasites were found in the hemocoel, but some were found up to one week after injection with a higher concentration (106 parasites/mL). As T. cruzi was absent from the salivary glands of bed bugs, oral transmission during feeding is highly unlikely. As bed bugs did not defecate while feeding and invariably defecated away from their feeding site, transmission of T. cruzi via bed bug feces - in a mode similar to kissing bugs - is also unlikely. Human consumption of food contaminated with infected bed bugs is a possible, but untested, mode of transmission.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.