Chagas disease, also known as "silent or silenced disease", affects mainly poor people without access to health care or people without a political voice.

The disease progress slowly and often shows an asymptomatic clinical course. Without treatment, Chagas disease can lead to severe cardiac and digestive alterations and become fatal.

Raising awareness of the disease is essential to improve the rates of early treatment and cure, together with the interruption of its transmission.

The World Chagas Disease Day was celebrated for the first time in 2020.

World Chagas Disease Day 2022 Theme: "Finding and reporting every case to defeat chagas disease"

The theme for 2022 is finding and reporting every case to defeat chagas disease. In many countries, there are low detection rates (<10%, frequently <1%) and frequent barriers to access adequate healthcare.

Chagas disease is prevalent among poor populations of continental Latin America but is increasingly being detected in other countries and continents.

It is often termed as a “silent and silenced disease” as the infected majority have no symptoms or extremely mild symptom. There are approximately 6-7 million people infected with Chagas disease worldwide, with 10,000 deaths, every year.