Chagas is a parasitic disease that is found mostly among people in Latin America, and which causes 100,000 deaths each year. It is an invisible disease, in which people can be infected by the parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, for years without knowing; as many as 7 million people are estimated to have the disease. If left undetected and/or untreated, up to 30 per cent of people will develop the life-threatening chronic form of the disease, which causes irreversible damage to the heart, oesophagus and colon.