m

cru kn This disease is endemic in most of the Latin American countries, and between 7 to 8 million have been esti-occurs with 1 to 4 insect bites, the probability of being infected with T. cruzi, a stercorarian parasite, is much Querido et al. Parasites & Vectors (2015) 8:29 DOI 10.1186/s13071-015-0632-9in Argentina and neighbouring countries. The area ofTropical, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, PortugalFull list of author information is available at the end of the articlemated to be infected people in the American continent [2]. T. cruzi is transmitted to humans and to wild and domestic animals by many species of haematophagous insects known as triatomines (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) [1]. The most common source of infection is when the parasite reaches the bloodstream of the bitten person who scratches the bite site and contaminates the skin wound with the insect’s feces containing the parasites. smaller: between 900 and 4,000 bites by an infected tria-tomine are needed for T. cruzi infection to occur [3,4]. Triatoma virus (TrV) (Dicistroviridae: Cripavirus) is a non-enveloped virus [5] and its genome contains two open reading frames (ORFs). ORF1 (5,387 nt in length) is responsible for encoding non-structural proteins such as RNA helicase, cysteine protease (3C) and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp), while ORF2 (2,606 nt in length) encodes the structural proteins VP1, VP2, VP3, and the minor protein VP4 [6]. The precursor protein of VP2 and VP4 is known as VP0. This virus was first isolated from Triatoma infestans [7,8], the main vector of Chaga