Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, is a tropical parasitic disease caused by Trypanosoma cruzi.[1] It is spread mostly by insects known as Triatominae, or "kissing bugs".[1] The symptoms change over the course of the infection. In the early stage, symptoms are typically either not present or mild, and may include fever, swollen lymph nodes, headaches, or swelling at the site of the bite.
https://archive.archaeology.org/9701/newsbriefs/syphilis.html
Identification of syphilis on an Old World skeleton predating Columbus would be strong evidence that the disease either originated in the Old World or occurred in both hemispheres. Olivier Dutour of the Faculty of Medicine at Marseilles has recently concluded that the skeleton of a seven-month-old fetus found in a fouth-century A.D. context at Costebelle, France, had lesions from congenital syphilis. But Bruce Rothschild, who has examined the Costebelle skeleton, contends that it is not a case of congenital syphilis but of lithopedion. "Stone children" or lithopedion, a rarity occurring in only 0.0045 percent of pregnancies, are the calcification of a fetus or of fetal membranes and were first described in a treatise on surgery by Albucasis (A.D. 936-1013). The Rothschilds and University of Texas at Austin archaeologist Leland Bement have recently identified a 3,100-year-old lithopedion case at the Bering Sinkhole site in Texas.
According to Bruce Rothschild the lesions in the Costebelle case indicate lithopedion. "The character of the pathology appeared to me to be calcified membranes/tissues, rather than periosteal reaction," he says. "The skull lesions are unlike those of treponemal disease (e.g., congenital syphilis) and the dramatic forearm calcification is unlike anything we have previously witnessed in over 500 cases of adult syphilis, nor in the periosteal reaction that characterizes yaws and bejel--disorders in which children (though probably not fetuses) are frequently affected."
Syphilis, it seems, developed in the New World from yaws, perhaps 1,600 years ago, and was waiting for Columbus and his crew. The Rothschilds are now examining skeletal collections from the Bahamas to look for evidence of syphilis nearer to Columbus' landfall.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_epidemics
"... tuberculosis (although a form of this infection existed in South America prior to contact),[5]"
5. Bos, Kirsten I.; Harkins, Kelly M.; Herbig, Alexander; Coscolla, Mireia; et al. (20 August 2014). "Pre-Columbian mycobacterial genomes reveal seals as a source of New World human tuberculosis". Nature. 514 (7523): 494–7. Bibcode:2014Natur.514..494B. doi:10.1038/nature13591. PMC 4550673. PMID 25141181.
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