Minsal approves new national technical standard against Chagas disease

The Ministry of Health approved General Technical Standard No. 263 for the National Control and Prevention of Chagas Disease, which replaces the regulatory instrument in effect since 2014. The decision is contained in exempt decree No. 64, signed on September 25, 2026, by order of the President of the Republic, and was published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Chile on Thursday, October 8, 2026, edition No. 44,569, Section I, page 1 of 3, with CVE 2881485.

An update twelve years after the previous standard

The text was prepared by the Disease Prevention and Control Division of the Undersecretariat of Public Health, and is issued using the powers of DFL No. 1 of 2005 of the Ministry of Health, DFL No. 725 of 1967, the Sanitary Code, and Law No. 20,584 of 2012, regarding the rights and duties of persons in their healthcare.

The processing originated from two requests from the leadership of that Division: memorandum B21/No. 408, dated September 4, 2025, and memorandum B21 No. 108, dated April 22, 2026. The decree nullifies exempt resolution No. 144, dated March 3, 2014, which approved General Technical Standard No. 162, and entrusts the publication of the instrument on the website www.minsal.cl to the Disease Prevention and Control Division, which must ensure its strict concordance with the original text.

What the new standard contains

General Technical Standard No. 263 is attached as an annexed document and forms part of the decree for all legal purposes. According to the official text, its characteristics are:

• Length of 140 pages, including 19 annexes.
• Text endorsed by the leadership of the Disease Prevention and Control Division.
• Original kept by the Office of Records and Document Management of the Ministry of Health.
• Guidelines focused on the integration of health teams and the interdisciplinary care of affected persons.
• Emphasis on expanding screening coverage for women of childbearing age, people wishing to conceive, pregnant women, and children, among other priority groups.
• Application in all public and private institutions in the country.

The sanitary background motivating the change

The decree recalls that Chagas disease is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, described in 1909 by the Brazilian physician Carlos Chagas from the blood of infected people and the droppings of the vector Triatoma infestans. The World Health Organization recognized it as a neglected tropical disease in 2005 and, in 2010, the 63rd World Health Assembly urged States to strengthen their control programs; that same year, the Governing Council of the Pan American Health Organization warned that the disease especially affects the most vulnerable populations in the region.

In the Chilean case, the text states that in 1999, indoor vector transmission was successfully interrupted, a goal recertified by the PAHO/WHO in 2016, and that since 2008, all blood donated for transfusions has been screened. Added to this are the Procedure Manual for the care of patients with Chagas disease, from 2017, and the agreements of the IX National Meeting of Referents of the National Chagas Disease Plan, held in 2023.

Closing

The new regulation arrives in an epidemiological scenario different from that of 2014: globalization and the migration of infected people from endemic countries have led to the appearance of cases in Europe, Asia, and the center-north of the United States, where the vector does not exist naturally. For patients and the Chilean healthcare network, the change implies updated guidelines for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment, with special attention to vertical transmission and screening in pregnant women and women of childbearing age, in both the public and private systems.

Source: Official Gazette of the Republic of Chile, No. 44,569, Thursday, October 8, 2026, Section I, page 1 (official reference: CVE 2881485).