Soroprevalência de vírus chikungunya em mulheres de 15 a 39 anos usuárias de unidades básicas de saúde de Fortaleza, Ceará

Abstract

This study aims to identify the socioeconomic profile and health behaviors of women detected with Chikungunya anti-virus antibodies in the city of Fortaleza in 2018. Chikungunya is a disease caused by a single-stranded RNA virus, Alphavirus arbovirus, whose transmission it is effected by females of Aedes mosquitoes, including Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. The Ministry of Health issued the first alert for indigenous transmission of Chikungunya in Brazil on September 16, 2014. In 2017, 105,232 cases and 194 deaths by Chikungunya were confirmed in the state of Ceará, while in Fortaleza there were 61,718 cases and 144 deaths confirmed in the same year, being considered the largest arbovirus epidemic ever recorded in the city. To estimate the soroprevalence of the Chikungunya virus in Fortaleza, 1,499 women users of health services in four UBS (Graciliano Muniz, Lineu Jucá, Anastácio Magalhães and Casemiro Filho) were selected from February to October 2018 to participate in the research under the criteria of being 15 to 39 years old, being sexually active and having no impediments to becoming pregnant. Each participant was submitted to a questionnaire using the Survey Monkey® software, divided into four categories: sociodemographic, knowledge about the mosquito, general health and intra and peridomiciliary sanitary conditions. Then, blood samples were collected for ELISA tests performed at the Central Laboratory of Public Health of Ceará (LACEN). Qualitative analyzes were performed with the aid of STATA software, version 15. The results showed that 631 (42.1%) women were positive for the presence of Chikungunya antivirus antibodies (IgG and IgM). Most women are aged between 20 and 24 years (29.1%), are brown (69.3%), complete high school (35.54%), economic class C (54.96%) and not performs paid work (66.54%). About 17.2% of women were pregnant at the time of the interview and 41.23% said they had become pregnant at least once. This study highlights the importance of formulating health strategies aimed at reducing social inequalities in the use of this service, and should consider the existence of differences in the pattern of use of these services. We highlight the importance of further studies aimed at identifying the profile and other dimensions of users of the Unified Health System.