Non-compliance with health surveillance is a matter of Biosafety: a survey of latent tuberculosis infection in a highly endemic setting

Objective This study aimed at identifying demographic, socio-economic and tuberculosis (TB) exposure factors associated with non-compliance with the tuberculin skin test, the management and prevention of non-compliance to the test. It was carried out in the context of a survey of latent TB infection among undergraduate students taking healthcare courses in two universities in Salvador, Brazil, a city highly endemic for TB. Methods This is a cross-sectional study of 1164 volunteers carried out between October 2004 and June 2008. Bivariate analysis followed by logistic regression was used to measure the association between non-compliance and potential risk factors through non-biased estimates of the adjusted OR for confounding variables. A parallel evaluation of occupational risk perception and of knowledge of Biosafety measures was also conducted. Results The non-compliance rate was above 40% even among individuals potentially at higher risk of disease, which included those who had not been vaccinated (OR 3.33; 95% CI 1.50 to 7.93; p=0.0018), those reporting having had contact with TB patients among close relatives or household contacts (p=0.3673), or those whose tuberculin skin test status was shown within the survey to have recently converted (17.3% of those completing the study). In spite of the observed homogeneity in the degree of Biosafety knowledge, and the awareness campaigns developed within the study focussing on TB prevention, the analysis has shown that different groups have different behaviours in relation to the test. Family income was found to have opposite effects in groups studying different courses as well as attending public versus private universities. Conclusions Although the data presented may not be directly generalisable to other situations and cultural settings, this study highlights the need to evaluate factors associated with non-compliance with routine testing, as they may affect the efficacy of Biosafety program

Challenges in the research and development of new human vaccines

Submitted by Ana Maria Fiscina Sampaio ([email protected]) on 2013-11-25T19:29:46Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Barbosa T Challenges in the....pdf: 210220 bytes, checksum: a3500b1dd61d3123c0b596b7594c3fdb (MD5)Made available in DSpace on 2013-11-25T19:29:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Barbosa T Challenges in the....pdf: 210220 bytes, checksum: a3500b1dd61d3123c0b596b7594c3fdb (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Pesquisa Gonçalo Moniz. Salvador, BA, BrasilFundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Pesquisa Gonçalo Moniz. Salvador, BA, BrasilThe field of vaccinology was born from the observations by the fathers of vaccination, Edward Jenner and Louis Pasteur, that a permanent, positive change in the way our bodies respond to life-threatening infectious diseases can be obtained by specific challenge with the inactivated infectious agent performed in a controlled manner, avoiding the development of clinical disease upon exposure to the virulent pathogen. Many of the vaccines still in use today were developed on an empirical basis, essentially following the paradigm established by Pasteur, ‘‘isolate, inactivate, and inject’’ the disease-causing microorganism, and are capable of eliciting uniform, long-term immune memory responses that constitute the key to their proven efficacy. However, vaccines for pathogens considered as priority targets of public health concern are still lacking. The literature tends to focus more often on vaccine research problems associated with specific pathogens, but it is increasingly clear that there are common bottlenecks in vaccine research, which need to be solved in order to advance the development of the field as a whole. As part of a group of articles, the objective of the present report is to pinpoint these bottlenecks, exploring the literature for common problems and solutions in vaccine research applied to different situations. Our goal is to stimulate brainstorming among specialists of different fields related to vaccine research and development. Here, we briefly summarize the topics we intend to deal with in this discussion

Revisiting proteus: do minor changes in lectin structure matter in biological activity? Lessons from and potential biotechnological uses of the Diocleinae subtribe lectins

Submitted by Ana Maria Fiscina Sampaio ([email protected]) on 2014-03-24T17:08:26Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Cavada B Revisiting proteus....pdf: 59350 bytes, checksum: 01b4aff56b7c0489edc0e5024ebedea6 (MD5)Made available in DSpace on 2014-03-24T17:08:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cavada B Revisiting proteus....pdf: 59350 bytes, checksum: 01b4aff56b7c0489edc0e5024ebedea6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2001Universidade Federal do Ceará. BioMol – Laboratório. Departamento de Bioquímica e Biologia Molecular. Fortaleza, CE, Brasil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Pesquisa Gonçalo Moniz. Laboratório de Imunoregulação. Salvador, BA, Brasil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Pesquisa Gonçalo Moniz. Laboratório de Imunoregulação. Salvador, BA, Brasil.Universidade Federal do Ceará. BioMol – Laboratório. Departamento de Bioquímica e Biologia Molecular. Fortaleza, CE, Brasil / Universidade Federal do Ceará. Laboratório de Citogenética e Genética Molecular. Departamento de Biologia. Fortaleza, CE, Brasil.Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Pesquisa Gonçalo Moniz. Laboratório de Imunoregulação. Salvador, BA, Brasil.Significant differences in function have been observed among lectins structurally similar to concanavalin A, but their high homology with this widely used lectin has kept them in obscurity. The observation of large differences in the potency of many of these Diocleinae lectins as stimulators of Interferon-g production by human peripheral blood mononuclear cells has lead to a major effort to unravel their chemical structure and biological activity. Modeling studies of some of these lectins reveal conformational changes in side chains of some residues involved in the carbohydrate-binding site, with possible effects on the ability of these proteins to recognize specific carbohydrate structures. Additionally, all them constitute in fact a mixture of isolectins, which in different proportions could lead to diverse effects. The present review of the biological actions of Diocleinae lectins includes several in vitro and in vivo immunological findings, as well as their effects on insect growth and reproduction. In these systems Diocleinae lectins proved to be quite diverse in their potency. Such diversity in the biological activity of highly related proteins recalls the origin of the name protein: like Proteus, the capability of assuming various forms is the essential feature of this class of molecules

In vivo lymphocyte activation and apoptosis by lectins of the Diocleinae subtribe

This paper reports the overall effects of three lectins, extracted from Canavalia brasiliensis, Dioclea violacea, and D. grandiflora, on BALB/c mice popliteal draining lymph nodes. These lectins have presented high stimulatory capacity on lymph node T cells. Additionally, they were able to induce apoptosis and inflammation (frequently associated with high endothelial venule necrosis). The data presented here suggest that the Diocleinae lectins studied can stimulate in vivo T cell activation and apoptosis, as well as present important side effects

Interferon-gamma production by mononuclear cells in Bacille Calmette-Guérin-revaccinated healthy volunteers predicted long-term antimycobacterial responses in a randomized controlled trial

Study group: Evelin S Oliveiraa,[email protected],Jaqueline S Rodriguesa,[email protected],Elisabete L Conceic¸ ãoa,[email protected],Mauricio R [email protected],Antonio Luis de O A [email protected],Juliana P Bezerra de [email protected],Sergio [email protected], Jamocyr M Marinhoc,[email protected],Manoel Barral-Nettoa,[email protected],Theolis Barbosaa,b,*[email protected] by Ana Maria Fiscina Sampaio ([email protected]) on 2017-08-29T12:59:28Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Oliveira ES T interferon gamma....pdf: 814815 bytes, checksum: 75d294d06aab43535db5f6f03a960006 (MD5)Approved for entry into archive by Ana Maria Fiscina Sampaio ([email protected]) on 2017-08-29T13:13:07Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Oliveira ES T interferon gamma....pdf: 814815 bytes, checksum: 75d294d06aab43535db5f6f03a960006 (MD5)Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-29T13:13:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Oliveira ES T interferon gamma....pdf: 814815 bytes, checksum: 75d294d06aab43535db5f6f03a960006 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado da Bahia–FAPESB [Convênio 160/03] and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico [Proc. Nr. 476860/2007-5]. JSR, MP and ELC have received scholarships from FAPESB, and ESO received a scholarship from Coordenação de Aperfeiç oamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES).Universidade Federal da Bahia. Salvador, BA, Brasil / Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Pesquisas Gonçalo Moniz. Salvador, BA, BrasilEscola Bahiana de Medicina e Saúde Pública. Salvador, BA, Brasil / Hospital Santa Izabel. Salvador, BA, BrasilUniversidade Federal da Bahia. Salvador, BA, Brasil / Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Centro de Pesquisas Gonçalo Moniz. Salvador, BA, BrasilStudy groupThe Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine is the only vaccine currently available for tuberculosis, and it demonstrates variable efficacy against the disease. The assessment of new vaccine strategies is hindered by the small annual probability that an infected individual will develop tuberculosis, and the lack of simple and reliable surrogate markers of protection. The frequency of cytokine-producing T cells as well as the production of IFN-γ have been disputed as surrogate markers of protection. We evaluated the evolution of these immune parameters in a population from a high burden city where BCG revaccination has been shown to result in mild protection. We found that individuals whose in vitro IFN-γ responses to mycobacterial antigens had increased by more than 3.3-fold were more likely to maintain higher responses after 1 year and to show increased expansion of IFN-γ-producing T lymphocytes than those with lower or null increase of IFN-γ