A contribuição da epidemiologia de campo para o estudo das doenças infecciosas e a saude publica / The contributions of field epidemiology to the estudy of infectious diseases and public health

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2007

RESUMO

Field epidemiology is an area of science that uses principles of classic epidemiology to respond to public health threats and improve the quality of life of a given population. In addition to classic epidemiology, the field epidemiologist uses knowledge from other areas such as economics, anthropology, social sciences, and communications to develop and implement control measures to reach his objectives. Limitations in this field are common, but it is the epidemiologist?s responsibility to be creative and to maintain scientific rigor to guarantee the accuracy of his work. Although field investigations may not aim to advance scientific knowledge, they offer unique opportunities to achieve this end. We present three field investigations and their implications for public health. The first one is the investigation of an outbreak of hepatitis C virus infections at a hematology/oncology clinic. We identified 99 cases of infection associated with the clinic. Transmission was related to the contamination of saline bags due to lack of adherence to proper infection control practices. This investigation highlights the challenges in implementing infection control programs in outpatient care facilities and the need for better hepatitis C surveillance to allow for early detection of outbreaks. The second investigation is also related to this hepatitis C outbreak. We evaluated the sensitivity of hepatitis C serologic tests in oncology patients and found that these tests are only 83% sensitive in this population, which limits their diagnostic utility if used alone. As a result, we recommend that serologic tests be combined with assays based on nucleic acid amplification in oncology patients. The third example describes the use of field epidemiology to investigate a possible case of West Nile virus transmission associated with blood transfusion despite laboratory screening. The rapid response by public health authorities confirmed this suspicion and prevented the occurrence of additional cases associated with the use of co-components from the original donation. In addition, the investigation provided evidence on the effectiveness of West Nile virus nucleic acid amplification tests for blood screening. These three examples demonstrate the utility of field epidemiology in public health investigations and how investigative findings support the implementation of measures to improve the quality of health of populations at risk. These investigations also allowed for the advancement of scientific knowledge in the respective areas

ASSUNTO(S)

epidemiologia saude publica doenças transmissiveis surtos de doenças epidemiology communicable diseases disease outbreaks public health

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