Neglected Tropical Diseases, Bioinformatics, and Vaccines

More than 2.5 billion individuals living in the tropics are estimated at risk of contracting at least 1 neglected tropical disease. Half of these individuals may be exposed to or have concomitantly ≥2 neglected tropical diseases, including those caused by helminths, schistosomes, parasitic protozoans, and viruses. Although the death toll caused by all neglected tropical diseases is not as high as for AIDS or tuberculosis, neglected tropical diseases still affect more than a million individuals, most of whom live in the poorest regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. In addition to the high mortality, most neglected tropical diseases are due to chronic infections and, therefore, have an enormous impact on childhood growth, disability-adjusted life-years, and productivity-associated economic losses targeting mainly the rural and poorest urban areas of developing countries [1]. Chagas disease, caused by the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma cruzi ,i s ap rototypical example of an neglected tropical disease of Latin America, with an estimated 10 million people chronically infected, causing a large burden of disability-adjusted life-years and billions of annual costs [2]. Chagas disease is endemic in 21 countries, and, in some instances, the number of individuals coming in contact with the parasite (estimated on the basis of seroprevalence) can be as high as 6.75% of the population, as in Bolivia [2, 3]. In addition, because of the migration of chagasic individuals, the disease has also been considered a health problem in developed countries where the disease is not endemic, such as the United