Procedures to Evaluate the Efficiency of Protective Clothing Worn by Operators Applying Pesticide

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Oral health associated with quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS in Brazil

Background: The epidemic of HIV/AIDS enters into its fourth decade and is still considered an important public health problem in developed and developing countries. The purpose is verify the oral health and other factors that influence the quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS attending a public service reference in Brazil.Methods: The participants answered the questionnaire on socio-demographic conditions, issues related to HIV and daily habits. The quality of life was analyzed by the HIV/AIDS Targeted Quality of Life (HAT-QoL) instrument with 42 items divided into nine domains: General Activity, Sexual Activity, Confidentiality concerns, Health Concerns, Financial Concern, HIV Awareness, Satisfaction with Life Issues related to medication and Trust in the physician. The oral health data were collected by means of the DMFT index, use and need of dentures and the Community Periodontal Index, according to the criteria proposed by the World Health Organization, by a calibrated researcher. Bivariate and multiple linear regressions were performed.Results: Of the participants, 53.1% were women and had a mean age of 42 years, 53.1% had eight years or less of schooling and 20.3% were not employed. In analyzing the quality of life domain of the HAT-QoL, with a lower average there was: Financial concern (39.4), followed by Confidentiality concern (43.2), Sexual activities (55.2) and Health concerns (62. 88). There was an association between the variables: do not have link to employment (p < 0.001), is brown or black (p = 0.045), alcohol consumption (p = 0.041), did not make use of antiretroviral therapy (p = 0.006), high levels of viral load (p = 0.035) and need for dentures (p = 0.025), with the worse quality of life scores.Conclusion: Socioeconomic and inadequate health conditions had a negative impact on the quality of life of people with HIV/AIDS.

Motor development of infants exposed to maternal human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) but not infected

Background: To assess the motor development of infants exposed to maternal human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Methods: Thirty infants were assessed in the period from November 2009 to March 2010 at the AIDS Reference and Training Centre, in São Paulo, Brazil. The assessment instrument used in the research was the Alberta Infant Motor Scale (AIMS). All 30 infants used the antiretroviral drug properly for 42 consecutive days, in accordance with the protocol of the World Health Organization. Results: Out of the total number of infants, 27 (90%) had proper motor performance and 3 (10%) presented motor delay, according to the AIMS. Discussion: This study demonstrated that only 10% of the assessed group had developmental delay and no relation with environmental variables was detected, such as maternal level of education, social and economic issues, maternal practices, attendance at the day care center, and drug use during pregnancy. It is important to emphasize the necessity of studies with a larger number of participants.

Tackling ionospheric scintillation threat to GNSS in Latin America

Scintillations are rapid fluctuations in the phase and amplitude of transionospheric radio signals which are caused by small-scale plasma density irregularities in the ionosphere. In the case of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers, scintillation can cause cycle slips, degrade the positioning accuracy and, when severe enough, can even lead to a complete loss of signal lock. Thus, the required levels of availability, accuracy, integrity and reliability for the GNSS applications may not be met during scintillation occurrence; this poses a major threat to a large number of modern-day GNSS-based applications. The whole of Latin America, Brazil in particular, is located in one of the regions most affected by scintillations. These effects will be exacerbated during solar maxima, the next predicted for 2013. This paper presents initial results from a research work aimed to tackle ionospheric scintillation effects for GNSS users in Latin America. This research is a part of the CIGALA (Concept for Ionospheric Scintillation Mitigation for Professional GNSS in Latin America) project, co-funded by the EC Seventh Framework Program and supervised by the GNSS Supervisory Authority (GSA), which aims to develop and test ionospheric scintillation countermeasures to be implemented in multi-frequency, multi-constellation GNSS receivers.

Prevalência da excreção e caracterização molecular do poliomavírus humano JC em amostras de urina de pacientes com aids sem leucoencefalopatia multifocal pro-gressiva

The human poliomavirus is the etiologic agente of Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML), a disease characterized by focal lesions not expansives of the central nervous system that develops in imunocompromissed patients, specially people with aids. The main aim of the study was to evalute the prevalence of the JCV excretion in urine samples of patients with aids, without PML, to compare two JCV DNA detection techniques through of two diferents genomic regions and to evaluate the genotypic characterization of the positive samples. A total of 75 samples were colected in the Instituto de Infectologia Emílio Ribas, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, between may and november, 2009. To detect the JC virus it was made the DNA extraction and then the polimerase chain reaction (PCR). Firstly a fragment of 215 bp was amplified, which corresponds to the codifying gene of the strutural protein of de JC vírus capsid VP1. All the samples were later submitted to another PCR that uses a pair of primers complementaries to the early region of the JCV (T antigen) amplifying a fragment of 173 bp. Followed by the digestion of the amplified product with the restriction enzime BamH1, resulting in two smaller fragments (120 bp and 53 bp). The JC vírus was detected in 53 samples, for both techniques (70,7% for VP1 PCR, and the restriction enzime BamH1), 34/46 were men (73,9%) and 19/29 were women (65,5%). The JCV excretion was higher in individuals that were over 46 years old. Regarding the seven genotypes described in the literature, the ones that were more prevalent among the JC positive patients were 3B and 3A with 10 samples each (21,0%), the 2B with 9 samples (19,0%) and genotype 6, with six samples (13,0%). As in the brown patients as the white ones, the most prevalent genotype was 3B. In the present study it was observed a high prevalence of JCV DNA (70,7%) and the genotype 3 (43,0%)... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS treated by the specialized service in Vitória-ES, Brazil

The aim of this study is to establish the factors that influence the quality of life of people living with HIV/AIDS being treated at a specialized public service. The participants answered the questionnaire on sociodemographic conditions, issues related to HIV and daily habits. The quality of life was analyzed using the HIV/AIDS-targeted quality of life (HAT-QoL) instrument with 42 items divided into 9 fields: General Activity, Sexual Activity, Confidentiality Concerns, Health Concerns, Financial Concerns, HIV Awareness, Satisfaction with Life, Issues related to Medication and Trust in the Physician. Bivariate and multiple linear regressions were performed. Of the participants, 53.1% were women and had a mean age of 42 years. In analyzing the quality of life, the HAT-QoL domain with the lowest average was Financial Concerns (39.4), followed by Confidentiality Concerns (43.2), Sexual Activity (55.2) and Health Concerns (62. 88). There was an association between the variables: not being gainfully employed (p < 0.001), being mulatto or black (p = 0.045) and alcohol consumption (p = 0.041) with the worst quality of life scores. Inadequate socioeconomic and health conditions had a negative impact on the quality of life of people with HIV/AIDS.

Late diagnosis and vulnerabilities of the elderly living with HIV/AIDS

Objective: To identify vulnerabilities of elderly people with HIV/AIDS and the trajectory that they follow until reaching the diagnosis of the disease. Method: Qualitative research conducted in specialized clinics in the state of Sao Paulo, from January to June 2011. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 elderly people who were found to be infected with the virus at the age of 60 years or older. The interviews were analyzed using content analysis. Results: In this process four categories emerged, then analyzed with reference to the theoretical framework of vulnerability. Conclusion: Late diagnosis of HIV infection or AIDS among the elderly happens in the secondary or tertiary service. Issues related to sexual life of the elderly are only questioned by health professionals after the diagnosis, also the time that condom use becomes absolute. It is believed that the investigation of the vulnerability of the elderly to HIV/AIDS allows for carrying out appropriate interventions for this population.

Influence of alternative drying aids on water sorption of spray dried mango mix powders: a thermodynamic approach

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Prevalence of anogenital warts in Men with HIV/AIDS and associated factors

Infection with human papilloma virus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted disease in the world. Among the 630 million new cases of HPV that occur each year, 30 million develop anogenital warts. Although subclinical infection with HPV is the most common cause, genital warts are also associated with immunosuppression caused by HIV. In view of the high prevalence of HPV/HIV co-infection particularly among men who have sex with men, the objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of anogenital warts in men with HIV/AIDS and to identify associated factors. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 159 men with HIV/AIDS consecutively selected at a referral service in Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil, in which the association between sociodemographic, behavioral and clinical variables and the presence of anogenital warts was evaluated. After hierarchical analysis of the data, variables presenting a p value ≤ 0.2 were entered into an unconditional multivariate logistic regression model. Forty-nine (31%) of the HIV-positive patients had anogenital warts. The mean age was 44.6 ± 9.6 years. The main factors associated with the presence of anogenital warts were irregular antiretroviral treatment and genital herpes(HSV). The present study demonstrate that anogenital warts occur in almost one-third of the male population infected with HIV and factors associated with a higher risk of being diagnosed with anogenital warts were irregular cART use and co-infection with HSV, other variables could not be associated.

A flow cytometry method for testing the susceptibility of Cryptococcus spp. to amphotericin B

Human fungal infections have increased at an alarming rate in recent years, particularly in immunocompromised individuals. Cryptococcosis is the second most prevalent systemic fungal infection worldwide, and the most prevalent systemic infection in immunocompromised individuals, representing more than 70% of cases. The incidence of cryptococcosis is high in people with HIV/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), with recent estimates indicating that there are one million cases of cryptococcal meningitis globally per year in AIDS patients. The aim of this research was to develop a rapid flow cytometric antifungal susceptibility test and to compare the results with the standard methods. A reference strain and clinical isolates of Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii were tested for susceptibility to amphotericin B by flow cytometry using propidium iodide as indicator of viability. Flow cytometry (FC) results were compared with the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values determined by microdilution. The antifungal activity of amphotericin B ranged from MICs of 0.06 to 2μg/ml for the 11 isolates studied. The same results were found by FC. The FC method allows same-day results, assisting in the selection of appropriate antifungal therapies. These results demonstrate an excellent correlation between FC and the classic methods of testing for susceptibility to antifungal agents. This rapid diagnosis method makes it possible to quickly administer effective therapeutic interventions, often saving lives.

Alterações mamográficas em mulheres que vivem com HIV-aids

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Vivendo com HIV/AIDS: estudos da ocorrência de discrimição nos serviços de saúde

Introduction: The discrimination experienced by people with HIV / AIDS, not only by society but also by health professionals is one of the major problems observed relative the epidemic. Objective: To verify and to analyze the occurrence of discriminatory attitudes in the assistance to the health of people living with HIV/AIDS. Methods: It was a quantitative research was carried out with the participation of sixty-eight HIV-positive individuals from four Brazilian cities. The participants answered auto-administrate questionnaires that contained open and closed questions including the considered subject. Results: 41.2% of the total participants, HIV + people, said they had been discriminated against by health professionals. Among the discriminatory situations experienced by HIV patients, 34.2% nursing professionals were involved, in 34.2% dentists and in 31.6% doctors were involved. Those who have suffered discrimination, 78.6% said they had been discriminated against in public health service. Conclusion: The occurrence of discrimination in the assistance to the health of HIV-positive patients was high. The majority of discrimination situations occurred in the public health service. It is necessary the institution of strategies aiming at human attendance to these patients.

Educação para a sexualidade: intervenção em um grupo de adolescentes assistidos pelo cras, a partir do conhecimento de suas representações sociais em relação às DST/Aids

The Socio-Historical Psychology Theory understands human development constituted by the social and historical relations, in whom the individual belongs, and understanding the meaning of adolescence as a time and built. The social psychology, in this theoretical approach, proposes, among others, the category Social Representations (SR) for analysis and discussion of psychosocial phenomena. This study aimed to investigate the SR of adolescents about sexually transmitted diseases (STD/SIDA), by means of a questionnaire in order to know their vulnerabilities to spread of STD/SIDA. After the identification of vulnerabilities, an intervention was performed through a group processes with adolescents 11 to 15 years, users of services CRAS of a city in São Paulo State, to provide subsidies in relation to education for sexuality. Based on data collected and discussed, it can be stated that among the multiple determinants of the increased incidence, as the Epidemiological Bulletin 2011/MS, the lack of safe sex practices contributes to the vulnerability of adolescents. Emphasizes the need to know their Social Representations proposing an intervention, not to reproduce the imposition of „packages awareness of safe sex practices,” homogeneous and universal, it does little to promote health and education of adolescents.

Marcadores de ativação imune, inflamação crônica e estresse oxidativo em pessoas que vivem com o HIV/Aids: a busca do melhor prognóstico

Pós-graduação em Doenças Tropicais - FMB