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Anales del Sistema Sanitario de Navarra
Print version ISSN 1137-6627
Abstract
MUNOZ-VILCHES, MJ; DOMINGUEZ-CASTELLANO, A and GUERRA-MARTIN, MD. Screening for Chagas disease in pregnancy and newborns in Andalusia (Spain). Anales Sis San Navarra [online]. 2019, vol.42, n.3, pp.281-290. Epub Apr 20, 2020. ISSN 1137-6627. https://dx.doi.org/10.23938/assn.0746.
Background
To determine the current state of the implementation of Chagas screening in pregnancy and newborns at risk in the eight Andalusian provinces.
Methods
An observational, cross-sectional and descriptive study was carried out through a survey reviewed and validated by experts from the Andalusian Group of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology. Eighteen pediatric infectious disease specialists from Andalusian referral hospitals (fourteen public and four private) participated.
Results
The Chagas screening during pregnancy was known by seventeen specialists (94%), and systema-tically applied in seven hospitals (38.9%) by gynecologists or midwives. The protocol for following-up newborns at risk was known by sixteen specialists (88.9%) and applied in ten hospitals (55.5%), two of which did not study siblings and relatives of these newborns. Only two cases of vertical transmission of Chagas (11.1%) were detected; it happened in two hospitals applying systematically the Chagas screening to pregnant woman at risk, the same ones that also diagnosed two cases in siblings of newborns at risk.
Conclusion
In Andalusia screening of Chagas disease in pregnant women and newborns at risk is not carried out in a systematic and uniform way in all the reference hospitals, so an underdiagnosis of congenital Chagas disease is highly probable. The training of professionals involved in assisting pregnant women and their offspring, and the unification of the follow-up criteria for newborns at risk would be essential for carrying out both a correct diagnosis and an early treatment of these cases.
Keywords : Chagas disease; Pregnancy; Infant; Newborn; Protocol.