TORCH Infections in Central America

A literature review was conducted to synthesize the limited information regarding TORCH infections in Central America’s Northern Triangle as defined by the following infections: Toxoplasmosis gondii, Trypanosoma cruzi, Zika virus, Dengue virus, rubella virus, cytomegalovirus, and herpes simplex virus. We searched the following databases for any peer-reviewed articles in English or Spanish between the years 2012 and August 2022: Pubmed, Google Scholar, ScieLo, PAHO, Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature, MASCOT/Wotro Map of Maternal Health Research, and Repositorio Centroamericano SIIDCA-CSUCA. University repositories from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras were searched for bachelor’s, master’s, and professional degree theses to further include studies not published in peer-reviewed scientific literature. Search terms were extensive, and the search was conducted with terms in both English and Spanish. Due to a general lack of information surrounding TORCH infections in this region, we included articles on the previously specified pathogens within the context of congenital infections, pregnant women, and women of childbearing age.
Reasons for exclusion from the final manuscript included: outside of date range, not original research, outside of target population, and outside of target countries of interest. Given the rarity of these infections within the common scientific literature, the overall majority of articles selected for this review were in the gray literature; consequently, the traditional PRISMA method was not employed. Findings from gray literature publications and other data sources used for this manuscript can be further found in Supplementary Materials.