Background: Brazil has the third largest prison population in the world. Research in the world has confirmed a high prevalence of mental disorders in this population. Objective: To identify prevalence and associated factors with depression and anxiety in prisoners of the closed prison system. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study with 643 prisoners were interviewed in six prisons in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. To evaluate depression and anxiety, the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview 5.0 (MINI) was used and sociodemographic, inprisonment and lifestyle habits variables were also collected. Results: The prevalence of depression found in the study was 20.6% (95% CI: 17.5-23.8) and of anxiety was 19.9% (95% CI: 16.8-23.0). The following were identified as risk factors for depression: being female, having a history of mental illness, non-white skin color, having a religion, not receiving visits, smoking, using drugs and not performing physical activities. Risk factors for anxiety were: being female, having a history of mental illness, a family history of mental illness, smoking and using drugs. Discussion: The study confirmed the high rates of depression and anxiety in the population deprived of liberty. In addition, women were twice as likely to have both disorders compared to men.

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is a pandemic caused by a new coronavirus, called SARS-CoV-2. This disease was first identified in December 2019 and rapidly developed into a challenge to the public health systems around the world. In the absence of a vaccine and specific therapies, disease control and promotion of patient health are strongly dependent on a rapid and accurate diagnosis. This review describes the main laboratory approaches to making a diagnosis of COVID-19 and identifying those previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Current diagnostic tools for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) have many disadvantages including low sensitivity, slow turnaround times, or high cost. Accurate, easy to use, and inexpensive point of care molecular diagnostic tests are urgently needed for the analysis of multidrug resistant (MDR) and extensively drug resistant (XDR) Mtb strains that emerge globally as a public health threat. In this study, we established proof-of-concept for a novel diagnostic platform (TB-DzT) for Mtb detection and the identification of drug resistant mutants using binary deoxyribozyme sensors (BiDz). TB-DzT combines a multiplex PCR with single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) detection using highly selective BiDz sensors targeting loci associated with species typing and resistance to rifampin, isoniazid and fluoroquinolone antibiotics. Using the TB-DzT assay, we demonstrated accurate detection of Mtb and 5 mutations associated with resistance to three anti-TB drugs in clinical isolates. The assay also enables detection of a minority population of drug resistant Mtb, a clinically relevant scenario referred to as heteroresistance. Additionally, we show that TB-DzT can detect the presence of unknown mutations at target loci using combinatorial BiDz sensors. This diagnostic platform provides the foundation for the development of cost-effective, accurate and sensitive alternatives for molecular diagnostics of MDR- and XDR-TB.

We conducted a cross-sectional, retrospective study, characterized by classical and molecular epidemiology, involving M. tuberculosis isolates from a regional prison in southern Brazil. Between January of 2011 and August of 2014, 379 prisoners underwent sputum smear microscopy and culture; 53 (13.9%) were diagnosed with active tuberculosis. Of those, 8 (22.9%) presented with isoniazid-resistant tuberculosis. Strain genotyping was carried out by 15-locus mycobacterial interspersed repetitive unit-variable-number tandem-repeat analysis; 68.6% of the patients were distributed into five clusters, and 87.5% of the resistant cases were in the same cluster. The frequency of drug-resistant tuberculosis cases and the rate of recent transmission were high. Our data suggest the need to implement an effective tuberculosis control program within the prison system.

New drugs are needed to treat infections with antimicrobial-resistant ; therefore, we evaluated usnic acid as an antimicrobial agent and efflux inhibitor (EI) against. Usnic acid showed antimicrobial activity, and synergistically, the EI verapamil increased this activity. In addition, when we evaluated the interaction of antimicrobials with usnic acid, the increase of their activity was observed. Finally, usnic acid showed an efflux inhibitory effect between the classical EIs verapamil and carbonyl cyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazine. In conclusion, usnic acid showed both antimicrobial and EI activity, indicating that this natural compound may be a promising scaffold for new drugs against this difficult-to-treat microorganism.