Chagas' cardiopathy and Trypanosoma cruzi zymodemes in Chile.

Chagas’ disease, the most widespread parasitic ailment in Latin America, produces clinical pictures with regional variations (1). In Chile, due to the country’s geographic and ecologic isolation, specific local conditions influencing Chagas’ disease vectors differ from those prevailing in other countries. One such vector, Triatoma spinohi, has not been found in other geographic areas. Among other things, this triatomid species is rendered unique by the polymorphism of its wings (2). Longitudinal studies of clinical disease cases in Chile have shown such cases to possess distinct features in different locales and to differ considerably from clinical cases in other parts of the Americas (3-I 1). We have reported previously that the observed variations in disease intensity and pathogenicity might be caused by distinct strains of T?ypanosoma crzui (12),