Revista de saúde pública
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Revista de saúde pública · Oct 1997
[The challenge of emergent diseases and the return to descriptive epidemiology].
The definition of emergent and re-emergent diseases, patterns of occurrence during the last 25 years, and the determinants of this occurrence are presented. The importance of descriptive epidemiology and its use in the investigation of these health problems, especially in view of epidemiologists' tendency to give less attention to it, finally, is emphasized the challenges that the emergent diseases pose for public health practice and for the methodological development of descriptive epidemiology are also set out. These challenges are considered in three fields: biosecurity, surveillance systems and descriptive epidemiology techniques.
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Revista de saúde pública · Aug 1997
[Accidents and acts of violence in Brazil: I--Analysis of mortality data].
External causes are an important cause of death in almost all countries. They are always the second or third in the mortality ranking, but their distribution according to type varies from country to country. Mortality due to external causes by type, gender and age, for Brazil as a whole and for state capitals specifically, is analysed. ⋯ Paulo, Curitiba, Porto Alegre, Cuiabá and the Distrito Federal. The mortality due to external causes in Brazil has become a major public health problem, especially because of homicides. It is important to emphasize that the quality of the mortality data on external causes is not the same for all capitals, because it is a question very closely related to the quality of legal information.
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The severity of traumas in hospitalized patients was characterized by means of the Injury Severity Score (ISS) was studied prospectively. One hundred trauma patients hospitalized in a trauma referral health facility located in S. ⋯ As to ISS, it was discovered that 53.0% of the blunt trauma patients had mild trauma (ISS 1-15), 29.4% moderate trauma (ISS 16-24), and 17.6% showed severe trauma (ISS 25); 34.4% of the penetrating trauma patients had mild trauma, 18.7% moderate trauma and 46.9% severe trauma. The mean and standard deviations relating to the ISS of blut and penetrating trauma patients were, respectively, 14.9 +/- 8.1 and 20.8 +/- 11.0; the respective mortality rates were of 11.8% and 12.5%.
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Revista de saúde pública · Aug 1990
Peroral susceptibility of Aedes albifasciatus and Culex pipiens complex mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) from Argentina to western equine encephalitis virus.
The transmission cycle of western equine encephalitis (WEE) virus in South America is unknown. A WEE virus strain was isolated from Aedes albifasciatus in Argentina during the WEE epizootic of 1982-83. Also, Culex pipiens from Argentina was reported to be able to transmit WEE virus experimentally, but other results indicate that Cx. pipiens from the USA is refractory to this virus. ⋯ In contrast, 0/44 Cx. p. quinquefasciatus and only 1/15 Cx. p. pipiens was positive. Aedes albifasciatus is susceptible to infection by WEE virus and should be considered a potential vector of this virus in Argentina. Both subspecies of Cx. pipiens are refractory to peroral infection by WEE virus and probably do not play a role in the WEE virus cycle in Argentina.