Killer kiss

A kiss is not always harmless.

The supposed victory kiss by the head of Spain’s football federation on the lips of a player of the national team that won the 2023 Women’s World Cup turned into a scandal that saw the kisser prosecuted for sexual assault.

Last February, a Spanish court found Luis Rubiales guilty over the smack that the player said was made without her consent. Aside from paying fines and compensating the player, Rubiales was banned from approaching or contacting her.

Meanwhile, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed a more worrisome kind of kiss.

In a public warning, the CDC said a kiss can infect a person with Chagas disease without them knowing it.

Symptoms of the rare infection are a flu-like illness, a rash, a heart attack or stroke, or nothing at all, which would leave it undiagnosed and untreated, ABC7 reports.

A person bitten by the kissing bug, so-called because it usually bites people in the face, close to the lips, may host a parasite found in the feces of the insect.

“A lot of people get infected when they’re little children, very, very young, and it can stay dormant for 30, 40, 50 years, and then manifest itself as premature heart-related issues,” said Dr. Suman Radhakrishna, an infectious disease specialist with Dignity Health California Hospital, according to ABC7.

There are some 300,000 Chagas cases in the United States, of which a third are in California. Most of the bites or infections occurred in other countries.

Radhakrishna said that a kissing bug infection should be detected early so it can be treated with anti-parasitic medications and doesn’t lead to a heart attack, stroke and difficulty in swallowing.