HIV test]

Chagas, also known as American trypanosomiasis, kills about 20,000 people per year, the journal said.

And while just 20 percent of those infected with Chagas develop a life-threatening form of the disease, Chagas is "hard or impossible to cure," the Times reports:

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The disease can be transmitted from mother to child or by blood transfusion. About a quarter of its victims eventually will develop enlarged hearts or intestines, which can fail or burst, causing sudden death. Treatment involves harsh drugs taken for up to three months and works only if the disease is caught early.

"The problem is once the heart symptoms start, which is the most dreaded complication—the Chagas cardiomyopathy—the medicines no longer work very well," Dr. Peter Hotez, a researcher at Baylor College of Medicine and oneA mother-of-two who says she's in the best shape of her life thanks to a gruelling diet and fitness regime has revealed she still enters up to three bodybuilding competitions a year - and credits her lifestyle with her age-defying looks.?

Contract carrier Kimberly Blankenship, from Double Springs in Alabama,?first began weight training when she was at college and has continued throughout her adult life, attending NPC bodybuilding competitions as a spectator with her husband.

After going to a show in 2009, Kimberly decided she wanted to compete, entering her first competition at the age of 45.?

Kimberly, now 52, follows a clean diet and gives herself 16-weeks to prepare for a competition instead of 12, to avoid injury. When she isn't competing, Kimberly weighs 10st and gets down to a