Determinantes sociais da saúde: o “social” em questão

Este artigo problematiza a visão sobre o “social” que subjaz a noção de determinantes sociais da saúde. Para isso, realizou-se um estudo exploratório, a partir de pesquisa bibliográfica em referenciais produzidos pelas ciências humanas, por meio de autores da sociologia contemporânea que refletem de forma crítica sobre como a ciência atual considera o “social”. O artigo inicia-se com uma caracterização geral do campo dos determinantes sociais da saúde, especialmente do ponto de vista político-científico. Logo em seguida, apresentam-se os elementos críticos, caracterizando caminhos sobre o pensamento dos autores supracitados. O estudo procurou destacar os reducionismos cada vez mais presentes na abordagem ao social no campo dos determinantes sociais da saúde. Tais reducionismos acabam por limitar uma leitura mais aprofundada sobre a complexidade da vida em sociedade e reforçam a mercantilização e banalização da vida. Santos (1988) observa que, frente a esses reducionismos, a ciência não pode ser somente a produção de um paradigma cientifico, mas um paradigma social - o paradigma de uma vida decente. O pensamento de Latour (2012) trouxe argumentos para repensar o “social” para além de um domínio específico e limitado da realidade, como algo sempre externo ao sujeito e à sua própria saúde. A visão fragmentada do campo dos determinantes sociais da saúde é o que colocamos em análise e produzimos questionamentos como forma de suscitar futuros debates sobre o tema em questão

Antibodies against Immature Virions Are Not a Discriminating Factor for Dengue Disease Severity

Humoral immunity plays an important role in controlling dengue virus (DENV) infection. Antibodies (Abs) developed during primary infection protect against subsequent infection with the same dengue serotype, but can enhance disease following secondary infection with a heterologous serotype. A DENV virion has two surface proteins, envelope protein E and (pre)-membrane protein (pr)M, and inefficient cleavage of the prM protein during maturation of progeny virions leads to the secretion of immature and partially immature particles. Interestingly, we and others found that historically regarded non-infectious prM-containing DENV particles can become highly infectious in the presence of E- and prM-Abs. Accordingly, we hypothesized that these virions contribute to the exacerbation of disease during secondary infection. Here, we tested this hypothesis and investigated the ability of acute sera of 30 DENV2-infected patients with different grades of disease severity, to bind, neutralize and/or enhance immature DENV2. We found that a significant fraction of serum Abs bind to the prM protein and to immature virions, but we observed no significant difference between the disease severity groups. Furthermore, functional analysis of the Abs did not underscore any specific correlation between the neutralizing/enhancing activity towards immature DENV2 and the development of more severe disease. Based on our analysis of acute sera, we conclude that Abs binding to immature virions are not a discriminating factor in dengue pathogenesis

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio