Development of a natural molluscicide prototype kit (MoluSchall) for the control of schistosomiasis mansoni transmission.

Introduction: In Brazil, Biomphalaria glabrata, B. tenagophila, and B. straminea are intermediate hosts of Schistosoma mansoni, the etiological agent of schistosomiasis mansoni.

Schistosoma mansoni infection and related knowledge among schoolchildren in an endemic area of Minas Gerais, Brazil, prior to educational actions.

As a signatory to World Health Assembly Resolution WHA65.21 on eliminating schistosomiasis, the Brazilian Ministry of Health (MoH) recommends early identification and timely treatment of the infection carriers for morbidity control, plus complementary preventive measures, such as health education, for transmission control. This study reports infection and awareness of schistosomiasis among schoolchildren before the implementation of school-based educational actions in an endemic municipality with persisting moderate prevalence levels despite successive control campaigns since the late 1990s.

Effect of a participatory educational program on primary school teachers' knowledge of malaria.

Objective: To describe a participatory educational program for building up knowledge on malaria among primary school teachers in a highly endemic city.

Methods: An observational study was conducted. A 40-hour course with a multidisciplinary and problematizing approach was held in 2008, including 46 teachers mainly from rural areas of the city of Barcelos, Northern Brazil.

[An evaluation of health learning during a visit to the Museum of Life].

Museums offer visitors both play and interactive activities that allow for learning. Yet it is challenging to understand learning in this context. How does it actually influence the learning process? This article stems from research on how a visit to a science museum may contribute to shaping the health concepts held by young people.

Factors related to transmission of and infection with Schistosoma mansoni in a village in the South-eastern Region of Brazil.

In this transversal study, factors related to infection with and transmission of Schistosoma mansoni were explored. Based on stool examinations of two Kato-Katz smears of a single sample, the prevalences of schistosomiasis and geohelminths were established. In a multivariable analysis, sets of demographic, socio-economic and water contact pattern variables were tested for strength of relation with infection.

Women's perceptions and practices regarding prevention and health promotion in primary healthcare.

Objective: To analyze the perceptions and participation of female basic health unit users with regard to prevention and health promotion.

Methodological Procedures: Qualitative study with 20 users of a family health unit in the municipality of Belo Horizonte, Southeastern Brazil, in 2007. The interview script included questions about the health-disease process and prevention and health promotion.

[Hortênsia de Hollanda: the art of health education to prevent and control epidemics in Brazil].

The article presents the transcription of a class given by Brazilian educator Hortênsia Hurpia de Hollanda entitled: "Educação sanitária na profilaxia das endemias rurais" [Sanitary education in the prophylaxis of rural epidemics], in a refresher course on rural epidemics and included in the Anais da Faculdade Fluminense de Medicina in December 1956. The annotated publication of the manuscript seeks to prove the pioneering efforts of Hollanda, whose work has been seldom investigated, considering the dimension of her role in the area of health education in Brazil. Sensitivity to social problems, the importance of the population's participation and an experimental attitude are some of the aspects presented in the educator's text, revealing an advanced theoretical grounding for her times and an original and pioneering practice that remains to this day as an ideal to be achieved.

Dengue prevention at the household level: preliminary evaluation of a mesh cover for flowerpot saucers.

The effectiveness of a polyester mesh cover (evidengue), aimed at preventing the access of female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to flowerpot saucers, was evaluated in laboratory. Two saucers of flowerpot with water were individually wrapped with the cover was placed with their respective pots in two entomological cages. One identical set of flowerpot and saucer was placed in a third cage.

The organization of health services and visceral leishmaniasis: an integrated intervention to improve diagnosis and treatment.

The objective of this study, carried out in municipalities located in a metropolitan region of Brazil, was to promote the early diagnosis and prompt treatment of visceral leishmaniasis. In the intervention model a health professional underwent training that covered all procedures involved in assisting patients with suspected visceral leishmaniasis. The professionals then returned to their municipalities where they implemented a workplan with the following aims: (a) at least one physician able to diagnose and treat patients; (b) training of professionals for the laboratorial diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis; (c) delivery of information on visceral leishmaniasis to the health workers.

[Evaluation of group and individual strategies in a diabetes education program].

Objective: To compare the effectiveness of individual and group strategies in a diabetes education program.

Methods: A total of 104 type-2 diabetes outpatients enrolled in an education program of a teaching hospital in Belo Horizonte, Southeastern Brazil, were randomly selected and assigned to two different education strategies: group education (54 subjects) and individual education (50 subjects). Group education comprised three monthly sessions, which involved play and interactive dynamics.

The effect of the number of stool samples on the observed prevalence and the infection intensity with Schistosoma mansoni among a population in an area of low transmission.

Examination of faecal material by Kato Katz (KK) technique is a widely used approach for the diagnosis of intestinal schistosomiasis, particularly in epidemiological surveys. However, this technique lacks diagnostic sensitivity in individuals with low infection intensity or in low endemic areas. In the total population (TP) of 1265 individuals prevalence and infection intensity were established by examining two KK slides.

A combined strategy to improve the control of Schistosoma mansoni in areas of low prevalence in Brazil.

Results of stool examinations for infections with Schistosoma mansoni among schoolchildren, living in a village of Minas Gerais State, Brazil, were used as an indicator to identify schistosomiasis-positive individuals within the entire population. This new approach is based on dividing the community into schoolchildren, members of households of schistosomiasis-positive and -negative schoolchildren, and members of households without schoolchildren. Each subgroup was evaluated comparing different sampling efforts with the predetermined "gold standard" to find the best relationship between detection rate and sampling effort.

[Aesthetics of the grotesque and audiovisual production for health education: segregation or empathy? The case of leishmaniasis in Brazil].

In order to understand audiovisual production on health and disease and the pedagogical effects of health education mediated by educational videos, this article analyzes the audiovisual production on leishmaniasis in Brazil. Fourteen educational videos showed the hegemony of TV aesthetics, particularly a journalistic paradigm with constant use of voice-over, inducing the fixation of meanings. Rather than stimulating critical reflection on the social circumstances of leishmaniasis, the videos' discourse and images promote a banal, non-critical, stigmatized representation of the disease.

Intergenerational representations of schistosomiasis in endemic area, Jaboticatubas, Minas Gerais.

The analysis of the intergenerational process of disease/health representations constitutes a requisite for the construction of projects and health education interventions. The objective of this work is to describe the meaning attributed to schistosomiasis in the family context. Twenty-one residents of an endemic area were interviewed.

Discursive media strategies in the journalistic construction of schistosomiasis in Jaboticatubas, Minas Gerais.

Using media discourse analysis for material published by the press on schistosomiasis in the city of Jaboticatubas, the possible determining factors of narrative and discursive constructions in the diffusion of information are discussed. It was observed that media discourse treats schistosomiasis in 1962 as something from the natural order. By 1997 and 1998, the media discourse strategies reveal ideological treatment in favor of certain social segments.

Evaluation of an improved approach using residences of schistosomiasis-positive school children to identify carriers in an area of low endemicity.

School children were used as indicators for the identification of schistosomiasis-positive family members in a area of low endemicity. This study was designed to improve current schistosomiasis control programs by applying this strategy to identify schistosomiasis-positive individuals in a more efficient way. The initial prevalence among school children was 8.

[Validation of Diabetes Mellitus Knowledge (DKN-A) and Attitude (ATT-19) Questionnaires].

Objective: To present the cross-cultural adaptation of the Diabetes Knowledge Scale and Attitudes Questionnaires targeted to evaluate Brazilian Diabetes Mellitus patients.

Methods: These questionnaires underwent the following steps: presentation, translation, back translation, semantic and idiomatic assessments, cultural and conceptual similarities and a pilot test. They were administered in two opportunities a month apart in a sample of 61 Diabetes Mellitus type-2 patients from a university hospital.

Evaluation of a pamphlet on visceral leishmaniasis as a tool for providing disease information to healthcare professionals and laypersons.

Although educational materials are frequently produced and used as part of control programs in Brazil, little is known about the efficacy of this type of information. This study evaluated the potential for disseminating information on visceral leishmaniasis using a pamphlet. The sample consisted of 551 healthcare workers and 379 laypeople from a metropolitan area located in southeast Brazil.

Factors associated with schistosomiasis mansoni in a population from the municipality of Jaboticatubas, State of Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Jaboticatubas is a municipality in the metropolitan region of Belo Horizonte which has been a target of a wide media release as "the capital of schistosomiasis" since the 1960's. In order to give support to a work based on an integrated control, we sought to identify the disease determinants at the site. A transversal study was carried out aimed at identifying prevalence rates of the disease and factors associated with the infection in the district of São José de Almeida, and two close localities, Cipó Velho and São José da Serra, all of them located in the municipality of Jaboticatubas.

A Pedagogical approach of schistosomiasis -- an experience in health education in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

The experience described here is part of an extensive program that aims to stimulate schools to develop health integrated projects from theme generators, i.e., themes that have a meaning for the community.

Rural tourism as risk factor for the transmission of schistosomiasis in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Recently, the booming rural tourism in endemic areas of the state of Minas Gerais was identified as a contributing factor in the dissemination of the infection with Schistosoma mansoni. This article presents data from six holiday resorts in a rural district approximately 100 km distant from Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil, where a possibly new and until now unperceived way of transmission was observed. The infection takes place in swimming pools and little ponds, which are offered to tourists and the local population for fishing and leisure activities.

Acute schistosomiasis outbreak in the metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais: alert about the risk of unnoticed transmission increased by growing rural tourism.

The present article describes the occurrence of 17 cases of acute schistosomiasis in the metropolitan area of Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. All individuals affected took a bath in a swimming pool of a holiday resort that was provided with water from a nearby brook. The apparently clean water and the absence of snails in the pool gave the wrong impression that there was no risk for infection.

[Experience with games in operative groups as part of health education for diabetics].

This paper presents and discusses an educational strategy implemented in a specialized hospital clinic. The goal was to stimulate individuals to reflect on their everyday lifestyles as related to their disease, specifically diabetes mellitus. The strategy can be characterized as an educational tool from the perspective of health promotion and disease prevention and control.

Evaluation of informative materials on leishmaniasis distributed in Brazil: criteria and basis for the production and improvement of health education materials.

Based on categories related to structure, content, language, and illustrations, the present study provides an evaluation of the quality of educational materials on leishmaniasis available to health services in Brazil. The 18 publications evaluated consisted of four handbooks, four guided studies, four booklets, and six leaflets. Of the total publications assessed, nine were produced by the Brazilian National Health Foundation (FUNASA), five by State and Municipal Health Departments jointly with FUNASA, and one by the Pan-American Health Organization.