A doctoral thesis, defended at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Murcia by Bartholomew Carrilero Fernandez, said the need to find more effective drugs and are better tolerated by patients of Chagas disease.
The only drugs that currently exist against this parasitic disease, causing more than 15,000 deaths annually and affects eight million people in Latin America are benznidazole and nifurtimox, which, according to the author in his thesis, have a high percentage side effects (33.5% to 61.5% for benznidazole and nifurtimox).
In the study, we analyze the increasing immigrant population with chronic Chagas disease has occurred in recent years in Spain.
In the Region of Murcia, the author has diagnosed 820 cases.
The thesis was directed by Manuel Segovia, Professor of Genetics and Microbiology, University of Murcia, Murcia and Laura Flores, a researcher at the Hospital Virgen de la Arrixaca.
Source: Universidad de Murcia