Human trypanosomiasis is commonly known as sleeping sickness in Africa (T. brucei) and Chagas disease (T. cruzi) in South America.

The insect is called the kissing bug as it likes to bite people on their face. While they’re biting you, kissing you in the middle of the night, they also happen to be defecating there. You wake up the next morning, you’re wiping the sleep out of your eye and you’ve just moved infected excrement into your eye and into your mouth mucous membrane. Then you become infected. The excrement contains the parasite that causes the virus. The symptoms include swelling of the eye or area where the parasite entered the body. It can also be associated with fever and headaches but in extreme cases the Chagas can be deadly.