Prevalencia de triatominos infectados con Trypanosoma cruzi en el litoral de la ciudad de Arica

it has been observed throughout america that when eradicating or diminishing the population of the domestic vector ofchagas 'disease, the wild vectors adquires more epidemiological importance. for this reason the objective of this investigation was to determine if the wild vectors from the coast of arica city are infected with trypanosoma cruzi. the study was made in 52 triatomines captured from the coast of arica city, during a period of 3 months since october until december 2004. then, it was applied pcr method on these triatomines to find t. cruzi. the investigation showed that mepraia gajardoi was infected with t. cruzi with a trypano/triatomine index of 19.2%, similar to the infection level found for mepraia spinolai in other investigations.