Davidson Hamer, MD Davidson Hamer, MD is a Professor of Global Health and Medicine at the Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine, the co-lead of the climate change and emerging infectious diseases research core at the BU Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases, and an attending physician in infectious diseases and Director of the Travel Clinic at Boston Medical Center. Dr. Hamer is a board-certified infectious disease specialist and medical epidemiologist with particular interest in emerging arboviral diseases, tropical medicine, travel medicine, infection control, and antimicrobial resistance.

Dr. Hamer has been involved in travel medicine for thirty years and from 2014 to 2021, Dr. Hamer served as the principal investigator and, since September 2021, as the Surveillance Lead, of GeoSentinel, a global surveillance network of 70 sites in 30 countries that uses returning travelers, immigrants, and refugees as sentinels of disease emergence and transmission patterns throughout the world. He also has been actively involved in enhanced screening for and treatment of patients with Chagas disease at Boston Medical Center.

Dr. Hamer is currently the Scientific Program Chair for the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and Section Editor the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (global health and Chagas disease).

Title of Talk: Chagas disease in non-endemic countries – strategies for screening and treating

There are an estimated 280,000 or more people living with Chagas disease in the United States. Many of these people are in the indeterminate phase of this chronic parasitic infection and approximately 30% of them will progress to develop chronic cardiac or gastrointestinal complications. This presentation will describe the epidemiology of Chagas disease in endemic and non-endemic countries, strategies to increase screening, an approach to evaluation and treatment, and potential complications of patients who have disease progression.