Abstract

LOBATO, Diana da Costa; NEVES, Dilma Costa de Oliveira  and  XAVIER, Marília Brasil. Evaluation of surveillance actions of household contacts of patients with leprosy in the City of Igarapé-Açu, Pará State, Brazil. Rev Pan-Amaz Saude [online]. 2016, vol.7, n.1, pp.45-53. ISSN 2176-6215.  http://dx.doi.org/10.5123/s2176-62232016000100006.

Reducing the risk of sickness among household contacts is one of the aims of the surveillance and leprosy control. This research aimed to evaluate the leprosy contacts of surveillance activities in the Municipality of Igarapé-Açu, Pará State, Brazil, from 2004 to 2008. It was conducted a descriptive, retrospective quantitative and population study with information generated by Notifiable Diseases Information System (Sinan) and a proper research protocol, 128 index cases were identified in Sinan of that city, 53 were rescued and interviewed, in that time 133 contacts were identified. Among the index cases, the ones that predominated were females (68%), people over 15 years old (79%) and the multibacillary operational class (66%). Among the contacts, the majority were male (52.63%) had completed elementary school (42.10%), single people (42.85%), unemployed (55.63%), with family income less than a minimum wage (60.15%) and with a scar of BCG-ID vaccination (67.67%). The rate of non-evaluated contacts was 84 (63.16%), and of these, according to the operational classification of the index case, 56 (66.70%) were contacts of multibacillary cases; 13 (37.14%) of multibacillary index cases were household contacts of leprosy cases to the previous study period. The city studied presented poor evaluation of household contacts according to the parameters of the Ministry of Health, which reinforces the necessity to increase the surveillance and leprosy control in endemic/hyperendemic municipalities.

Keywords : Leprosy; Public Health Surveillance; Disease Transmission, Infectious.

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