T. cruzi can survive in refrigerated stored blood, and can survive freezing and thawing, allowing it to persist in whole blood, packed red blood cells, granulocytes, cryoprecipitate, and platelets. The development and implementation of blood bank screening tests has dramatically reduced the risk of infection during blood transfusion. Nearly all blood donations in Latin American countries undergo Chagas screening. Widespread screening is also common in non-endemic nations with significant populations of immigrants from endemic areas, including the United Kingdom (implemented in 1999), Spain (2005), the United States (2007), France and Sweden (2009), Switzerland (2012), and Belgium (2013). Serological tests, typically ELISAs, are used to detect antibodies against T. cruzi proteins in donor blood.Other modes of transmission have been targeted by Chagas disease prevention programs. Treating T. cruzi-infected mothers during pregnancy reduces the risk of congenital transmission of the infection. To this end, many countries in Latin America have implemented routine screening of pregnant women and infants for T. cruzi infection, and the World Health Organization recommends screening all children born to infected mothers to prevent congenital infection from developing into chronic disease. Similarly to blood transfusions, many countries with endemic Chagas disease screen organs for transplantation with serological tests.There is no vaccine against Chagas disease. Several experimental vaccines have been tested in animals infected with T. cruzi and were able to reduce parasite numbers in the blood and heart, but no vaccine candidates had undergone clinical trials in humans as of 2016.
Almost immediately thereafter, at the suggestion of Miguel Couto, then professor of the Faculdade de Medicina do Rio de Janeiro, the disease was widely referred to as "Chagas disease". Chagas discovery brought him national and international renown, but in highlighting the inadequacies of the Brazilian governments response to the disease, Chagas attracted criticism to himself and to the disease that bore his name, stifling research on his discovery and likely frustrating his nomination for the Nobel Prize in 1921.In the 1930s, Salvador Mazza rekindled Chagas disease research, describing over a thousand cases in Argentinas Chaco Province. In Argentina, the disease is known as mal de Chagas-Mazza in his honor. Serological tests for Chagas disease were introduced in the 1940s, demonstrating that infection with T. cruzi was widespread across Latin America. This, combined with successes eliminating the malaria vector through insecticide use, spurred the creation of public health campaigns focused on treating houses with insecticides to eradicate triatomine bugs. The 1950s saw the discovery that treating blood with crystal violet could eradicate the parasite, leading to its widespread use in transfusion screening programs in Latin America. Large-scale control programs began to take form in the 1960s, first in São Paulo, then various locations in Argentina, then national-level programs across Latin America. These programs received a major boost in the 1980s with the introduction of pyrethroid insecticides, which did not leave stains or odors after application and were longer-lasting and more cost-effective.