Chagasí disease is a human health problem in Latin America. It is highly prevalent in northern Chilebetween the Arica-Parinacota and Coquimbo regions, with reported incidence of 3–11/100000 inhabi-tants and mortality of 0.3–0.4/100000. The interruption of vector transmission was reported in 1999 bymeans of the elimination of the primary vector, Triatoma infestans, from human dwellings, thus the epi-demiologic dynamics of this disease should be modified. Here we model the dynamics of Chagas´ı diseasebased on previous models for vector and congenital transmission, propose a model that includes bothtransmission forms and perform simulations. We derive useful relationships for the reproductive number(R0) showing that it may be expressed as the sum of the vector (R0V) and congenital (R0C) contributions.The vector contribution is larger than the congenital one; without the former Chagas´ı disease vanishesexponentially in two to three generations. Sensitivity analyses showed that the main parameters thatintervene are the human bite rate, the density of vectors per human and the mortality rate of the insectvectors. Our model showed that the success of the eradication of Chagas´ı disease is based on the inter-ruption of domestic transmission. Once this is obtained, the control strategies should focus on avoidingthe domiciliation of wild vectors, re-colonization by the primary vector, and an adequate coverage ofcongenital case treatment.
