Schistosomiasis mansoni in the Southwest of the State of Minas Gerais (Brazil)

É descrito um foco de esquistossomose mansoni, no Município de Passos, sudoeste do Estado de Minas Gerais, região até agora considerada livre da endemia. Relata-se a presença de Biomphalaria glabrata parasitada por Schistosoma mansoni, em um clube campestre, nas imediações da cidade, além de quatro crianças, residentes neste clube, com esquistossomose autóctone. Observa-se ainda, a existência de B. straminea, não infectada, nos tanques da Estação de Hidrobiologia e Piscicultura de Furnas. É discutida a importância epidemiológica da esquistossomose para a região.A new focus of schisiosomiasis mansoni at Passos, a town in the Southwest of the State of Minas Gerais (Brazil), region until now considered free of the disease is reported. Malacological surveys showed Biophalaria glabrata naturally infected with Schistosoma mansoni in a country club near Passos. All B. straminea captured at the pisciculture station of the Furnas hydroeletric dam were negative. Six out of seven individuals living in the country club were found to be infected with S. mansoni, including four children who had never been out of Passos. The epidemiological importance of these findings is discussed

Primeiros casos autóctones de esquistossomose mansoni em região do Noroeste do Estado de Minas Gerais (Brasil)

The finding of authochtonous cases of schistosomiasis mansoni at Paracatu, Northwest of Minas Gerais State (Brazil) was reported. They were children of ages ranging from 12 to 14, who had never been out of this town. A total of 11,471 Biomphalaria straminea were collected, and all of them were negative to Schistosoma mansoni cercárias and/or sporocystes. The local authorities were advised on, measures to be taken with a view to schistosomiasis control.São relatados os primeiros casos autóctones de esquistossomose mansoni, originários da cidade de Paracatu, Noroeste do Estado de Minas Gerais, Brasil, região até o momento considerrada indene para esta parasitose. Trata-se de oito pacientes com idade entre 12 e 14 anos, e que nunca haviam se ausentado da localidade. Os levantamentos malacológicos proporcionaram a coleta de 11.471 exemplares de Biomphalaria straminea, todos negativos para Schistosoma mansoni. Foram sugeridas medidas que, se colocadas em prática, poderiam controlar a parasitose na cidade

Associações entre o uso de cannabis e esquizofrenia: uma revisão da literatura

Objetivo: revisar a literatura sobre a associação entre uso de cannabis e o desenvolvimento de esquizofrenia. Metodologia: revisão sistemática da literatura realizada em bases de dados eletrônicas (PubMed e SciELO), que inclui revisões e estudos observacionais (estudos de coorte e cortes transversais) publicados no período de janeiro de 2000 a novembro de 2015, além de estudos encontrados mediante busca manual. Resultados: ao final do processo de busca e pré-seleção dos artigos pela leitura do título e do resumo, foram selecionados 13 artigos. Após a leitura na íntegra, foram selecionados 11 artigos para compor a revisão sistemática. Conclusões: há uma sugestiva associação entre uso de cannabis e risco de esquizofrenia, com um aumento do risco verificado especialmente nas situações de predisposição a psicoses e uso precoce de cannabis. Não é possível definir uma relação causal entre uso de cannabis e esquizofrenia, porém, caso exista, a direção da associação parece ser do uso de cannabis como causa de esquizofrenia, e não o inverso. 

Statement of Second Brazilian Congress of Mechanical Ventilarion : part I

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High levels of immunosuppression are related to unfavourable outcomes in hospitalised patients with rheumatic diseases and COVID-19 : first results of ReumaCoV Brasil registry

Objectives To evaluate risk factors associated with unfavourable outcomes: emergency care, hospitalisation, admission to intensive care unit (ICU), mechanical ventilation and death in patients with immune-mediated rheumatic disease (IMRD) and COVID-19. Methods Analysis of the first 8 weeks of observational multicentre prospective cohort study (ReumaCoV Brasil register). Patients with IMRD and COVID-19 according to the Ministry of Health criteria were classified as eligible for the study. Results 334 participants were enrolled, a majority of them women, with a median age of 45 years; systemic lupus erythematosus (32.9%) was the most frequent IMRD. Emergency care was required in 160 patients, 33.0% were hospitalised, 15.0% were admitted to the ICU and 10.5% underwent mechanical ventilation; 28 patients (8.4%) died. In the multivariate adjustment model for emergency care, diabetes (prevalence ratio, PR 1.38; 95% CI 1.11 to 1.73; p=0.004), kidney disease (PR 1.36; 95% CI 1.05 to 1.77; p=0.020), oral glucocorticoids (GC) (PR 1.49; 95% CI 1.21 to 1.85; p50 years (PR 1.89; 95% CI 1.26 to 2.85; p=0.002), no use of tumour necrosis factor inhibitor (TNFi) (PR 2.51;95% CI 1.16 to 5.45; p=0.004) and methylprednisolone pulse therapy (PR 2.50; 95% CI 1.59 to 3.92; p<0.001); for ICU admission, oral GC (PR 2.24; 95% CI 1.36 to 3.71; p<0.001) and pulse therapy with methylprednisolone (PR 1.65; 95% CI 1.00 to 2.68; p<0.043); the two variables associated with death were pulse therapy with methylprednisolone or cyclophosphamide (PR 2.86; 95% CI 1.59 to 5.14; p<0.018). Conclusions Age >50 years and immunosuppression with GC and cyclophosphamide were associated with unfavourable outcomes of COVID-19. Treatment with TNFi may have been protective, perhaps leading to the COVID-19 inflammatory process

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery