Análise espacial dos casos de histoplasmose disseminada associada a AIDS no município de Fortaleza

Abstract

Histoplasmosis is considered the most common endemic mycosis in humans, with acosmopolitan distribution and significant impact in Brazil. In recent decades, Histoplasma capsulatum has emerged as an opportunistic pathogen in individuals with impaired cellular immunity such as patients on prolonged corticosteroid therapy, transplant recipients, and immune compromised patients who developed acquire dimunideficiência syndrome (AIDS). The published literature has few serological surveys on the prevalence of this disease in Brazil and little is known about its distribution; in this context, the State of Ceará has been identified as an area of high prevalence of cases of disseminated histoplasmosis (DH) associated with AIDS in this country. The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Public Health has aimed to understand the health-disease process in many situations, such as planning and evaluation of health actions, definition of risk areas for disease incidence or analysis of spatial dispersion epidemics. The goal of this study was to evaluate the spatial distribution of DH associated with AIDS cases from 1999 to 2007 in Fortaleza, Ceará. The spatial analysis of DH / AIDS cases was based on medical records information obtained from the Medical and Statistics File System of the São José Hospital of Infectious Diseases (SAME / HSJ) . Demographic and clinical data were collected in semi-structured questionnaires to characterize the population studied, and in sequence the geo referencing and spatial statistical analysis of cases was performed through the software Terra view 4.0.0, utilizing the districts as the aggregation units. We identified 238 cases of HD / AIDS; 86 individuals were from other municipalities and excluded. The males/females ratio was 1.43, the mean age was 40.3 ± 12.8 years, the education level was more frequent in the range of 4 to 7 years of study (34.9% ) and most (53.02%) received up to 3 minimum wages. There was a predominance of unemployed (13.16%, p = 0.003) and the majority of them (38.71%) was women. Seventy-five (64.7%) of the 116 districts that comprise the city of Fortaleza were cited as home address by the patients. The analysis of Kernel maps with the social-environmental indicators showed an association with a medium and low sanitation coverage and medium and low Human Developing Index. The cases were clustered in areas with high density of houses. This is the first study associating DH / AIDS and GIS in Fortaleza, allowing the geographic localization of morbidity and mortality profile of DH / AIDS in this city, indicating areas where specific investigations and interventions should be carried out.