It is now accepted that the presence of parasites in cardiac tissue is necessary to initiate and maintain the inflammatory response, and that therapeutic treatments or vaccines aimed at eliminating T. cruzi would limit or prevent the progression towards chronic chagasic cardiomyopathy [80, 81] . There is a growing consensus that protection against T. cruzi relies on a Th1 immune response and the activation of cytotoxic CD8 + T cells [82] [83] [84] [85] .