Donor agency commitment to Chagas disease

2024 www.thelancet.com Vol 373 June 13, 2009 tackling Chagas disease in the country where Carlos Chagas discovered it 100 years ago. Unfortunately, owing to a shortened agenda and the predominance of pandemic infl uenza, submission of this resolution was postponed until next year’s WHA. Major donor agencies, with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) at the fore, have been closely involved in tackling the disease, contrary to the conclusions recently drawn in The Economist. Although we welcome the magazine’s call for renewed international attention to Chagas disease, it incorrectly reports that donor attention to the disease is waning. JICA has tripled its spending for the disease since 2000 and is expanding its support in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, and Nicaragua. Through JICA’s collaboration with the Guatemalan Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, the country was certifi ed by PAHO as having interrupted the transmission of Chagas disease via Rhodonius prolixus in 2008. With the change in epidemiology that Igreja lucidly depicts, continuous collaboration between the ministries of health and donor agencies is key to interrupting transmission of this debilitating disease.