Tropical Diseases Surfacing More in Texas - Texas and Mexico: Sharing a Legacy of Poverty and Neglected Tropical Diseases

chron.com - by Todd Ackerman - April 27, 2012

Houston scientists have launched an attack against little-known tropical diseases, scourges of the developing world, increasingly showing up in poor areas of Texas.

The diseases, spread by all manner of blood-sucking insects, cyst-forming tapeworms and tissue-invading bacteria and viruses, typically don't kill, but they cause chronic disabilities that trap sufferers in lasting poverty.

"They may have been here all along, but now that we're looking we're seeing these diseases more and more," says Dr. Peter Hotez, a Baylor College of Medicine infectious disease professor leading the effort. "They have a huge impact - heart disease, epilepsy, mental retardation – even though they fly beneath most everyone's radar."

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PLOS - Texas and Mexico: Sharing a Legacy of Poverty and Neglected Tropical Diseases

http://www.plosntds.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pntd.0001497