Política de Crédito do BNDES e Sustentabilidade de Crescimento do Setor Primário

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the effectiveness of credit supply by the National Bank for Social and Economic Development (BNDES) on the growth sustainability of the primary sector, based on convergence criteria with the application of an autoregressive model with endogenous threshold, as proposed in Caner e Hansen (2001). The empirics were conducted in the period from January/2000 to September/2014 with quarterly data from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) for the Gross Domestics Product (GDP) of the primary sector and from the BNDES for disbursements to that sector. The estimates allow us to infer that the growth dynamics of the proposed indicator, disbursement/GDP, is linear and globally explosive. These findings suggest that BNDES disbursements policy for the primary sector is not consistent with maintaining a trajectory of sustainable economic growth in the long run, which leads to inefficiency in its allocation of credit granting

Anemia and anti-tuberculosis treatment outcome in persons with pulmonary tuberculosis: A multi-center prospective cohort study

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major plague of humanity. People with TB (PWTB) are commonly anemic. Here, we assessed whether the severity of anemia in PWTB prior to anti-TB treatment (ATT) was a risk factor for an unfavorable outcome. Methods: Patients ≥ 18 years old with culture-confirmed drug-susceptible pulmonary TB enrolled between 2015 and 2019 in a multi-center Brazilian cohort were followed for up to 24 months and classified according to anemia severity (mild, moderate, and severe), based on hemoglobin levels. A multinomial logistic regression model was employed to assess whether anemia was associated with unfavorable outcome (death, failure, loss to follow-up, regimen modification or relapse), compared to treatment success (cure or treatment completion). Results: Among 786 participants who met inclusion criteria, 441 (56 %) were anemic at baseline. Patients with moderate/severe anemia were more HIV-seropositive, as well as more symptomatic and had higher frequencies of unfavorable outcomes compared to the other groups. Moderate/severe anemia (adjusted OR [aOR]: 7.80, 95 %CI:1.34–45.4, p = 0.022) was associated with death independent of sex, age, BMI, HIV and glycemic status. Conclusion: Moderate/severe anemia prior to ATT was a significant risk factor for death. Such patients should be closely monitored given the high risk of unfavorable ATT outcomes