 The disease was named after the Brazilian physician and epidemiologist Carlos Chagas , who first described it in 1909 . The disease was not seen as a major public health problem in humans until the 1960s ( the outbreak of Chagas disease in Brazil in the 1920s went widely ignored ) . Dr Chagas discovered that the intestines of Triatomidae ( now Reduviidae : Triatominae ) harbored a flagellate protozoan , a new species of the Trypanosoma genus , and was able to demonstrate experimentally that it could be transmitted to marmoset monkeys that were bitten by the infected bug . Later studies showed squirrel monkeys were also vulnerable to infection . 
 The disease was named after the Brazilian physician and epidemiologist Carlos Chagas , <a href='null_relcl' title='1'><mark>who</mark></a>first described it in 1909 . The disease was not seen as a major public health problem in humans until the 1960s ( the outbreak of Chagas disease in Brazil in the 1920s went widely ignored ) . Dr Chagas discovered that the intestines of Triatomidae ( now Reduviidae : Triatominae ) harbored a flagellate protozoan , a new species of the Trypanosoma genus , and was able to demonstrate experimentally that it could be transmitted to marmoset monkeys <a href='null_relcl' title='2'><mark>that</mark></a><a href='uninflect' title='3'><mark>were</mark></a> bitten by the infected bug . Later studies showed squirrel monkeys <a href='uninflect' title='4'><mark>were</mark></a> also vulnerable to infection . 
The disease was named after da Brazilian physician and epidemiologist Carlos Chagas , first described it in 1909 . The disease was not seen as a major public health problem in humans til tda1960s ( the outbreak of Chagas disease in Brazil in the 1920s went widely ignored ) . Dr Chagas discovered that the intestines of Triatomidae ( now Reduviidae : Triatominae ) harbored a flagellate protozoan , a new species of the Trypanosoma genus , and was able to demonstrate experimentally that it could be transmitted to marmoset monkeys was bitten by thdanfected bug . Later studies showed squirrel monkeys was also vulnerable to infection .