World Chagas Disease Day

World Chagas Disease Day is observed on 14 April to raise awareness of Chagas disease, a neglected tropical disease found mostly in Latin America. Its creation was approved at the 72nd World Health Assembly in May 2019, and it was first observed in 2020; the date of 14 April marks the anniversary of the 1909 diagnosis of the first human case by the Brazilian physician Carlos Chagas, for whom the disease and the day are both named. The observance aims to raise the profile of the disease so as to improve rates of early treatment and cure and to help interrupt its transmission.