01989nas a2200241   4500000000100000008004100001260001600042653002100058653001200079100001500091700001500106700001700121700001700138700001400155700001600169700001400185245012200199856015300321300001100474490000700485520124100492022001401733       2022                            d  bElsevier BV10aGeneral Medicine10aSurgery1 aPradhan AU1 aUwishema O1 aWellington J1 aNisingizwe P1 aThambi VD1 aOnyeaka CVP1 aOnyeaka H00aChallenges of addressing neglected tropical diseases amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa: A case of Chagas Disease  uhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2049080122011748/pdfft?md5=bac6a44aa3b1047ad220ba9d59047ba2&pid=1-s2.0-S2049080122011748-main.pdf  a1044140 v813 a<p>Chagas Disease (CD) is an infectious, neglected tropical disease (NTD) that has affected over 1.7 billion people worldwide. Unfortunately, most countries usually put little effort into mitigating the spread of NTDs, having weak public health approaches, diagnostic delays, and ineffective clinical management guidelines and resources. However, the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, exacerbates the impact of NTDs. In this review, we examine the subsequent changes that have been imposed on CD prevention and treatment. Articles from Google Scholar and PubMed were extracted which satisfied our inclusion criteria. From our data, we gather that COVID-19 has — from preventive measures to treating patients — greatly affected every stage in the fight against CD. For instance, co-infection of CD and COVID-19 puts patients at higher risk for cardiomyopathy (i.e., atrial fibrillation, chronic heart failure), yet no clinical guidelines were established for co-infected patients. To mitigate the spread of CD during the COVID-19 pandemic, further investigations on the impacts of co-infections and vaccines that can be developed to treat such conditions are warranted.</p>
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