Landfills as risk factors for respiratory disease in children.

Objective: To investigate the relationship between exposure to a landfill site closed 6 years previously and respiratory symptoms in children aged up to 13 years.

Method: This was a cross-sectional study conducted in Várzea Paulista, in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. One adult in every household in a neighborhood close to the landfill and from a randomized sample of households in another neighborhood with similar socioeconomic characteristics but no landfill were interviewed and asked about respiratory symptoms and other variables relating to children aged up to 13.

Environmental inducers of schistosomiasis mansoni in Campinas, Brazil.

Human occupation/activity in the suburbs of the large cities in Brazil, together with high social vulnerability associated with poor living conditions, influence the dynamics of schistosomiasis mansoni as well as several other emerging and re-emerging diseases. Previous notification data surveys for Campinas, São Paulo state, Brazil, carried out by the Information System for Notification Disease, show that there are distinct prevalence differences across healthcare districts of the city. This paper supports the hypothesis that the distribution of schistosomiasis is not random and that the centralized location of cases are linked to human behaviour, in particular to human activities that interfere with basic landscape structure.

Human toxocariasis: incidence among residents in the outskirts of Campinas, State of São Paulo, Brazil.

With the aim of estimating the incidence of infection by Toxocara among residents in the outskirts of Campinas (State of São Paulo, Brazil) two serological surveys, using ELISA anti-Toxocara tests, were performed in January 1999 and January 2000, involving, respectively, 138 and 115 individuals, 75 of which examined in both occasions. Among this group 67 individuals did not show the presence of anti-Toxocara antibodies in 1999, and 12 presented seroconversion in the second survey, revealing an annual incidence rate of 17.9%.

Human toxocariasis: a seroepidemiological survey in the municipality of Campinas (SP), Brazil.

The occurrence of human Toxocara infection was evaluated in three neighborhoods of the periphery of the Campinas municipality (Jardim Santa Mônica, Jardim São Marcos and Jardim Campineiro) in 1999. Forty residences and 138 residents were randomly selected by drawing lots and were submitted to a seroepidemiological survey, which included blood collection for the immunoenzymatic detection (ELISA) of anti-Toxocara antibodies and a blood count, and the application of a semi-structured questionnaire for the evaluation of epidemiological data. Significant levels of anti-Toxocara antibodies were detected in 23.