Spatial distribution of schistosomiasis foci on Itamaracá Island, Pernambuco, Brazil

Acute cases of schistosomiasis have been found on the coastal area of Pernambuco, Brazil, due to environmental disturbances and disorderly occupation of the urban areas. This study identifies and spatially marks the main foci of the snail host species, Biomphalaria glabrata on Itamaracá Island. The chaotic occupation of the beach resorts has favoured the emergence of transmission foci, thus exposing residents and tourists to the risk of infection. A database covering five years of epidemiological investigation on snails infected by Schistosoma mansoni in the island was produced with information from the geographic positioning of the foci, number of snails collected, number of snails tested positive, and their infection rate. The spatial position of the foci were recorded through the Global Positioning System (GPS), and the geographical coordinates were imported by AutoCad. The software packages ArcView and Spring were used for data processing and spatial analysis. AutoCad 2000 was used to plot the pairs of coordinates obtained from GPS. Between 1998 and 2002 5009 snails, of which 12.2 percent were positive for S. mansoni, were collected in Forte Beach. A total of 27 foci and areas of environmental risk were identified and spatially analyzed allowing the identification of the areas exposed to varying degrees of risk.

Freqüência de anticorpos contra Babesia bigemina, B. bovis e Anaplasma marginale em rebanhos leiteiros da regiäo de Londrina, Paraná / Frequency of antibodies against Babesia bigemina, B. bovis and Anaplasma marginale in dairy farms of Parana State, Brazil

Sera collected from 417 dairy cows from Londrina, PR, Brazil, were analysed by the indirect fluorescent antibody test (IFAT) for the presence of anitbody against Babesia bigemina, Babesia bovis e Anaplasma marginale. All samples were tested diluted 1:80 using rabbit anti-bovine IgG FITC conjugate diluted 1:100. Among the samples, 289 (67.30 per cent), 251 (60.19 per cent) and 281 (67.38 per cent) showed reactivity to B. bigemina, B. bovis and A. marginale, respectively. Although the number of reactive animals as relatively high, considerable percentages of negative animals (30.70 per cent, B. bigemina, 39.18 per cent, B. bovis and 32.62 per cent, A. marginale) were susceptible, characterizing the situation as enzootically instable

Lesoes pre-cancerosas associadas a gastrite cronica atrofica e a ulcera peptica gastrica. / Precancerous lesions associated with atrophic chronic gastritis and gastric peptic ulcer

Do grupo de patologias gastricas relacionadas com o aumento de risco para cancer gastrico (condicoes pre-cancerosas) duas tem merecido especial atencao: a gastrite cronica atrofica e a ulcera peptica. Neste trabalho os autores avaliam a incidencia de displasia na gastrite cronica atrofica e na ulcera peptica gastrica. Em 148 casos de gastrite cronica atrofica diagnosticaram-se lesoes displasicas em 92 (62,0%), assim distribuidas: 63 casos (68,4%), displasias discretas, 25 casos (27,0%), displasias moderadas, e 4 casos (4,3%), displasias acentuadas. Das 329 ulceras pepticas gastricas estudadas, 51 (15,5%) estavam associadas a lesoes displasicas:em 34 casos (66,6%) diagnosticou-se displasia discreta, 12 casos (23,5%) displasia moderada e 5 casos (9,8%) de displasia acentuada. Enfatiza-se a necessidade da continuacao do estudo destas lesoes, se possivel com mapeamento gastrico, para sua melhor compreensao