Chagas disease and the technology problem
Pinto Dias, J.C.
Boletin de la Oficina Sanitaria Panamericana. Pan American Sanitary Bureau 99(3): 244-257
1985
ISSN/ISBN: 0030-0632 PMID: 2936363 Document Number: 250074
Technology is today an issue of major imoportance in Latin America, where medical and health problems such as Chagas' disease still prevail. The basic technology for the control of this trypanosomiasis was developed long ago, but in most of the countries where the disease is endemic no real decisions have yet been taken to address the problem. The importance of the disease remained unrecognized for many years, perhaps because it was associated with poverty and underdevelopment and, moreover, its etiology is difficult to treat and only recently have active drugs and procedures emerged for use against its principal manifestations (cardiac arrhythmias). The approach to the disease, says the author, is characterized by ethically questionable invasive medical practices and the subjection of technological choice to the profit motive, along with a failure to apply the knowledge gained from research, which are common features of Third-World life. Research, however has been an improtant means of bringing out the sociomedical implications of the endemic and of detecting the epidemiological levels most susceptible of treatment and prevention. A technology of research and control has been developing in the endemic countries along with "technological surveillance" of procedures, drugs and epidemiological situations capable of creating fresh problems. Also sought is an indigenous technology based on science, but also participatory and integrated into the community and the services for the control and primary care of the disease. Essentially, the control of Chagas' disease is today less a matter of solving technological problems than of political will. At the same time, however, it is recognized that areas subsist in which research and technology will have to be augmented with a view to a more comprehensive and conclusive attack on the problem.