Agent of Chagas' disease from Honduran vector capable of developing in California insects: implications for cardiologists.

An exotic strain of Trypanosoma cruzi recovered from Triatoma dimidiata from Tegucigalpa, Honduras, was shown by isoenzyme studies to be closely related to the Miles' zymodeme 1 and laboratory reference strain Tehuantepec. It was injected into Swiss random-bred ICR mice. Clean Triatoma protracta nymphs and adults, which had been captured in Winters, California, fed on inoculated mice and were then examined over a 15-month period. Their feces contained multiplying epimastigote and infective trypomastigote forms of T. cruzi. This shows that exotic strains of T. cruzi can develop and survive for long periods in local California vectors. The increasing number of immigrants from Central America who enter California and other states may have public health implications in regard to the introduction of pathogenic strains that are capable of producing cardiomyopathy. Cardiologists who examine patients with cardiomyopathy from Central and South America should rule out Chagas' disease as a cause, since pathogenic T. cruzi strains are present in most Central and South American countries.