Quality of life and the risk of contracting malaria by multivariate analysis in the Brazilian Amazon region.

BACKGROUND: The incidence of malaria in the Amazon basin is closely related to social inequalities, given that precarious economic and socio-environmental conditions represent favourable factors for the transmission of the disease in tropical regions, such as the Brazilian state of Pará. In the present study, an association was found between the variation in a quality of life index (QLI), based on the socioeconomic differences between the municipalities of this state, and the risk of contracting malaria, based on the Annual Parasitic Index (API), with the primary objective of providing guidelines for the development of effective strategies for the control of the disease. METHODS: The API scores for the years between 2003 and 2011 were collected from the Brazilian Ministry of Health's DATASUS database, and socioeconomic data for the 143 municipalities of Pará were obtained from the 2010 census. The data were analysed using multivariate factorial and correspondence techniques. RESULTS: The QLI was calculated for each municipality, of which, 69.23% were classified as having a poor or regular quality of life. The municipalities with poor QLI scores also presented moderate to high rates of malaria, with probabilities of 80.97% and 95.13%, respectively, while those with good QLI scores had low rates of malaria, with a probability of 79.24%. The results indicated a concentration of malaria in the south-west of the state of Pará, with an increase of 8.82% in the incidence of the disease over the study period, and the northeastern and Marajó mesoregions, where there was an increase of over 90%. In south-eastern Pará, by contrast, there was a marked reduction (78%) in the incidence of the disease, reflecting the heterogeneous distribution of malaria among the different municipalities and mesoregions of the state, especially those with moderate to high risk of transmission. CONCLUSIONS: These findings confirm that malaria is endemic to Pará and is typical of the state's poorest areas, and that the distribution of the disease within the state indicates an intimate relationship with the living conditions of the population, affecting primarily the economically less privileged sectors of the society.

Distribution of the ABO and Lewis blood group phenotypes in the Caninde indian reserve

Os sistemas de grupos sangüíneos ABO e Lewis foram determinados nos níveis eritrocitário e salivar em uma populaçäo indígena miscigenada da reserva Canindé. A populaçäo desta reserva está distribuída em seis vilas compostas por indivíduos originários de diferentes tribos. A distribuiçäo dos fenótipos ABO inclui 87 por cento dos indivíduos no grupo sangüíneo O e 13 por cento no grupo sangüíneo A. Em relaçäo ao fenótipo Lewis eritrocitário, foram consideradas as seguintes freqüências: 4 por cento Le (a+b-), 48 por cento Le (a-b+), 34 por centro Le (a-b-) E 14 por cento Le (a+b+). Um problema nestes achados tem sido a observaçäo de que alguns indivíduos que apresentam o fenótipo eritrocitário Le (a-b-), mostraram atividade anti-Le b em suas secreçöes salivares. A freqüência elevada do fenótipo eritrocitário (a+b+) é compatível com a média descrita para populaçöes de origem Asiática. A análise estatística com o teste G independente näo-paramétrico mostrou uma diferença näo significativa na distribuiçäo dos grupos sangüíneos ABO e Lewis nas diferentes vilas relatadas.

A subgroups of the ABO blood system

The A and AB variants of the ABO blood group system were studied in a sample of 367 donors from Belém (Par State, Brazil), and in 5 families of donors in which variation was observed. Tests were based on commercial anti-A and anti-B sera, and anti-A1, anti-H lectins. Observed subgroups and their frequencies were: A1 (235); Aint (11); A2 (Hw (31); A2 (66); A1B (11); Aint B (1); A2(BHw (6); A2B (5); A3B (1). No statistically significant differences were observed in the distribution of variants according to racial group. Overall, the observed variation in the AH/ABH condition may reflect ethnic differences between individuals, given that the population of Belén is trihybrid.