Chagas disease, a protozoan parasite (Trypanosoma cruzi), is the parasite that causes Chagas Disease, affecting approximately 8 million people worldwide, mostly in Latin America, with over 10 000 new cases annually. The parasite can be transmitted during pregnancy or birth by triatomine bugs, orally (food-borne), food-borne, or through blood/blood products (transfusional), organ transplantation and laboratory accidents. ChagAS disease is curable if early treatment and follow-up can prevent disease progression and prevent transmission during pregnancy and birth. Without early diagnosis and treatment, up to a third of people with chronic infection develop cardiac alterations and 1 in 10 develop digestive, neurological or mixed alterations. Key strategies include testing and treating girls, women of reproductive age, newborns and siblings with the infection, insect vector control (in Latin America), blood screening prior to transfusion and transplantation, and comprehensive follow-ups and information, education and communication in communities and health professionals. The disease is named after Carlos ChagAs, a Brazilian physician and researcher, who first diagnosed the disease in 1909. The infection has been detected in 44 countries including Canada, the United States, and many European and some Western Pacific, African and Eastern Mediterranean countries.