Case-fatality from orally-transmitted acute Chagas disease: a systematic review and metanalysis

Abstract

Orally-transmitted acute Chagas disease (CD) is emerging as an important public health problem. The prognosis of acute infection following oral transmission is unknown. The aim of this paper was to analyze and summarize data on orally-transmitted acute CD. We searched for studies from 1968 to January 31, 2018. We included studies and unpublished data from government sources that reported patients with acute CD orally-transmitted. We identified 41 papers and we added 932 unpublished cases. In all, our study covered 2470 cases and occurrence of 97 deaths. Our meta-analysis estimated that the case-fatality rate was 1.0% (95% CI 0.0 – 4.0%). Lethality rates have been declined over time (p = 0.02). In conclusion, orally-transmitted acute CD has considerable lethality in the first year after infection. The lethality in symptomatic cases is similar to that from other routes of infection. The lethality rate of orally-acquired disease have declined over the years.