Towards Faster Diagnosis of Congenital Chagas in Latin America

The Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) has received new funding from Japan’s Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund to continue developing the LAMP diagnostic methodology for the timely detection of Chagas disease. The project ChagasLAMP-2 will run from January 1, 2026, to December 31, 2027. Activities will be carried out in collaboration with the companies Eiken Chemical Co., Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) and Wiener lab (Rosario, Argentina). It also includes the participation of CONICET-Ingebi (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and the SANIT Foundation (Cochabamba, Bolivia). This consortium will work towards the registration and implementation of the molecular test T. cruzi-LAMP as an authorized product in Argentina and Bolivia.

Chagas disease, caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, affects more than 7.4 million people in Latin America and over 0.5 million in other regions. Mother-to-child transmission remains a public health challenge. Although the two available antiparasitic drugs, benznidazole and nifurtimox, are highly effective and well tolerated by newborns, early diagnosis is essential to ensure timely treatment.

Improving detection from birth

The current algorithm for detecting vertical infection requires months, multiple tests, and has limited sensitivity. The main objective of ChagasLAMP-2 is to register the assay based on T. cruzi-LAMP as a product for the timely detection of so-called “congenital Chagas”. This molecular tool near point-of-care matches standard PCR in sensitivity and specificity but is easier to perform, provides faster turnaround times, and is expected to have lower costs. The project aims to obtain licensing for T. cruzi-LAMP from the regulatory agencies ANMAT in Argentina and AGEMED in Bolivia.

Continuity of the ChagasLAMP consortium’s work

ChagasLAMP-2 continues the work developed in a previous project, also funded by the GHIT Fund, which evaluated innovative tools for diagnosing chronic T. cruzi infection in pregnant women and congenital Chagas in their newborns. In this new phase, the goal is to advance toward the adoption of these tools in real-world settings, reducing loss to follow-up, speeding up case confirmation, and strengthening strategies to control congenital transmission.

“Having sensitive and easy-to-use tests at the point of care is key to early detection of infection and ensuring timely treatment for newborns, where efficacy is very high,” concludes Julio Alonso Padilla, principal investigator of the project.