César Cabezas

Mayaro Virus Disease: An Emerging Mosquito-Borne Zoonosis in Tropical South America

This report describes the clinical, laboratory, and epidemiological findings on 27 cases of Mayaro virus (MV) disease, an emerging mosquito-borne viral illness that is endemic in rural areas of tropical South America. MV disease is a nonfatal, dengue-like illness characterized by fever, chills, headache, eye pain, generalized myalgia, arthralgia, diarrhea, vomiting, and rash of 3-5 days duration. Severe joint pain is a prominent feature of this illness; the arthralgia sometimes persists for months and can be quite incapacitating. Cases of two visitors from the United States, who developed MV disease during visits to eastern Peru, are reported. MV disease and dengue are difficult to differentiate clinically.

Viscerotropic disease following yellow fever vaccination in Peru.

Five suspected cases of yellow fever vaccine-associated viscerotropic disease (YEL-AVD) clustered in space and time following a vaccination campaign in Ica, Peru in 2007. All five people received the same lot of 17DD live attenuated yellow fever vaccine before their illness; four of the five died of confirmed YEL-AVD. The surviving case was classified as probable YEL-AVD. Intensive investigation yielded no abnormalities of the implicated vaccine lot and no common risk factors. This is the first described space-time cluster of yellow fever viscerotropic disease involving more than two cases. Mass yellow fever vaccination should be avoided in areas that present extremely low risk of yellow fever.

Avances y retos en la construcción del sistema nacional de investigación en salud en el Perú

The objective of this paper is to present the situational status of the National Health Research System of Peru (NHRS), the lessons learnt during the building process, the opportunities to improve it and the challenges. A description of the functions of the peruvian NHRS is done, in relation to governance, legal framework, research priorities, funding, creation and sustainability of resources and research production and utilization. It describes that in Peru we excert governance in research, we count with regulations, policy and research priorities, these last developed in the framework of a partipatory, inclusive process. The conclusion reached is that the challenges of the peruvian NHRS are to consolidate the governance and to develop the mechanisms to articulate the stakeholders involved in research, to improve the resources allocation for research and innovation, to ellaborate a plan for the development of human resources dedicated to research, to develop institutions and regional competences in order to perform research, and to link research in order to solve problems and make national research policies sustainable.

Trends in mortality burden of hepatocellular carcinoma, cirrhosis, and fulminant hepatitis before and after roll-out of the first pilot vaccination program against hepatitis B in Peru: An analysis of death certificate data

The first pilot vaccination program against hepatitis B in Peru was implemented in the hyperendemic Abancay province in 1991. To assess the impact of vaccination on mortality rates of hepatitis B-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), cirrhosis, and fulminant hepatitis, we compared mortality trends before (1960-1990) and after (1991-2012) roll-out of the vaccination program, using death certificate data from the Municipalidad Provincial de Abancay. Our results showed that, following program roll-out, the overall mortality rates (per 100,000 population) decreased from 9.20 to 3.30 for HCC (95% CI, 1.28-10.48%; P<0.014), from 16.0 to 6.3 for cirrhosis (95% CI, 3.20-16.10%; P<0.004), and from 34.80 to 1.28 for fulminant hepatitis (95% CI, 16.70-50.30%; P<0.001). The absolute number of deaths attributable to cirrhosis (10 [8.80%] vs. 0.0%; P<0.001) and fulminant hepatitis (83 [40.0%] vs. 5 [19.20%]; P<0.026) decreased in 5-14-year-old children following vaccination. These findings showed reduced mortality rates of hepatitis B-related liver diseases, particularly cirrhosis and fulminant hepatitis in children under 15years, following implementation of the vaccination program against hepatitis B.

Análisis bibliométrico de la producción científica sobre VIH/SIDA en el Perú 1985 - 2010

Objective. To analyze the evolution of published scientific articles on HIV/AIDS in Peru. Methods. A bibliometric analysis of papers on HIV/AIDS published in journals indexed in MEDLINE, SciELO and LILACS until October 2010. We selected research papers fully developed in Peru, and multicenter studies with participating Peruvian sites. Results. We identified 257 publications on HIV/AIDS, showing an increase since 2003. The average publication delay was 2.8±1.8 years. Only 94 (36.6 %) articles were published in Spanish. The most studied areas were epidemiology (36.6 %) and clinical topics (35.8 %). The cross-sectional design was the most frequent (56.8 %) followed by case series. According to the WHO classification, studies to learn more about the disease and risk factors predominated (85.6 %) and according to the intervention areas, 46.7 % focused on diagnosis and treatment. Most studies were conducted in Lima (65.9 %). 48.2 % of studies focused on people living with HIV/AIDS. Finally, Revista Peruana de Medicina Experimental y Salud Publica was the journal that published most articles on HIV/AIDS (9.7 %). Conclusions. We found a growth in scientific production on HIV / AIDS in Peru; however, we believe that the research undertaken was not based on an agreed national agenda or national research priorities, which might have limitted its dissemination and application.

Enfoque sindrómico para el diagnóstico y manejo de enfermedades infecciosas febriles agudas en situaciones de emergencia

Several of the acute diseases with infectious etiology (viral, bacterial or parasitic) initially start with a syndrome which can be febrile, febrile icteric, febrile hemorrhagic, febrile with respiratory manifestations, febrile with neurological impairment, febrile with dermal eruptions, febrile anemic, diarrheal, necrotic cutaneous ulcer, or deaths of febrile patients may occur without a defined diagnosis, with some variants according to the ecological-social niche in which they occur; the syndromic approach is important, to quickly classify the case or the outbreak and thus have an appropriate and timely diagnosis that allows to orient both the individual management and the prevention and control measures in the population, even if there are limitations for the diagnosis of all the cases. This article describes the syndromic approach, the syndromes of importance in public health (collective) and their approach, all this is important because of its presentation in outbreaks that are occurring in the various ecological niches of our country, exacerbated by climate change.

Capacidad predatora de trofozoitos de Trichomonas hominis para destruir y/o fagocitar a Blastocystis hominis

Trichomonas hominis es un protozoario considerado comensal del intestino grueso (1) que no invade la mucosa; el trofozoito mide entre 8-14 um, con tres a cinco flagelos, y uno que se extiende a lo largo de la membrana ondulante y emerge en el extremo posterior. Posee un núcleo ovoide con cariosoma central, no se conoce el estadio de quiste. Blastocyctis hominis es un protozoario que puede tener entre 2 a más de 100 um de tamaño.

El timerosal y las enfermedades del neurodesarrollo infantil: Comentarios y respuestas

Quiero comentarle sobre las versiones periodisticas sobre el articulo del Dr. Maya publicado en la Revista de la Facultad, sobre el timerosal y vacunas. Desde el ano 1991, venimos trabajando con vacunas en recien nacidos y menores de 5 anos, sin haber documentado los efectos que mencionan en dicho tema de debate. Por otro lado, hay estudios serios, en paises en donde se retiro las vacunas con timerosal y los casos de autismo siguen en igual o en mayor numero. Siendo este tema controversial, la difusion a traves de los medios de aspectos no comprobados perjudica la aceptacion de las vacunas en la poblacion. Conociendo las miles de vidas que salvan las vacunas y el ahorro en el sufrimiento y la economia de las familias asi como del pais, considero no muy serio que los medicos, que debieramos mas bien mejorar la proteccion de la salud, estemos sembrando la desconfianza en las vacunas, atribuyendoles efectos no comprobados.