Acompanhamento epidemiológico da doença de chagas aguda em municípios do nordeste paraense

Abstract

Chagas disease is caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi, which is transmitted through contact with the feces and contaminated urine of the hematophagous insect known as kissing bug, which has several means of transmission, being more frequent via oral and vector transmission in the state of Pará. In recent years, Pará stands out as the state that reported the most cases of acute chagas disease, notably due to the high consumption of contaminated açaí. The work aimed to research secondary data that involved a descriptive and retrospective analysis of cases investigated from 2019 to 2023, with data collected by the Notifiable Diseases Information System (SINAN). In a total of 83 cases investigated, 12 were confirmed with Chagas disease. Among the municipalities that reported and confirmed the most cases, Augusto Corrêa, Bragança, Salinópolis and Capanema stand out. The urban area was the area that presented the highest number of suspected cases, and the form of infection was oral transmission, through the consumption of contaminated food. It is important to highlight that in the majority of cases no investigation into the presence of the vector was carried out, which represented 77% of the cases investigated. This reveals a serious public health problem in the region. Even with a relatively low number of confirmed cases over 5 years, the lack of adequate epidemiological investigation and an effective response by the competent authorities is evident. Knowledge of the correct epidemiological profile is crucial to generating information that can support the creation of effective measures to prevent and control Chagas disease in the region. To this end, necessary resources from public authorities, for better data collection planning, with definition of the number of samples per municipality and frequency of collections will be fundamental.