Thanks for this most informative post. For those clinicians like myself who are constantly exposed to blood and body fluids (Birth Center), it makes me feel even more conscious of the need to avoid contact with patient blood and to wash my hands even more frequently than I do (although I don't know how transmissible the parasite would be with incidental surface contamination
). I care for many patients who have just arrived from Mexico and have no prenatal care whatsoever. No real way to confirm whether exposure to Chagas' has occurred. Sobering thought.