Fifty nine chronic chagasic individuals from a out-patient clinics in Belo Horizonte, who use to act as blood donors were submitted to xenodiagnosis and hemocultures for isolating Trypanosoma cruzi. Forty four of them (74.5%) had already given blood 1 to 20 times. The results, based on only one xenodiagnosis and one blood culture per patient revealed 47. 7% of parasitological positivity. The whole population studied wes responsible for 112 donations. These data stress the importance of transmission of Chagas disease through blood transfusion in Belo Horizonte.
Transfusional transmission; Chagas' disease; Xenodiagnosis; Hemoculture