Introduction: We present a novel multistep technique to estimate the actual burden of road traffic mortality in

Five studies were carried out in children younger than 4 years old attending regularly day care centres in order to determine the intestinal parasitization by Cryptosporidium and Giardia. The percent of children parasitized by Cryptosporidium was 10% (17 children out of 170 studied). Cryptosporidiosis was more frequent in winter than in other seasons (difference statistically significant). Giardia intestinalis, which was the most frequent parasite, was identified in 25.3% (43 children out of 170 studied). Giardiasis was more frequent in autumn and in the low SEL (difference statistically significant in both cases). The frequency of giardiasis increased from 8% in children studied during 1-2 seasons, to 34% in children studied for 3-5 seasons (difference statistically significant), whereas the frequency of cryptosporidiosis did not show variation with increased number of specimens studied per child. The 35% of children parasitized by Cryptosporidium sp. showed gastrointestinal symptoms but only 14% of children with Giardia intestinalis.

A prospective study was carried out to investigate the epidemiology and clinical significance of Blastocystis hominis in the following groups of the population of the city of Salamanca (Spain): in children attending 11 day care centres and 7 primary schools, two fecal samples were obtained from each child, and in 1231 patients attending the Clinical Hospital. A B. hominis incidence of 5.3-10.3% was found in the day care centres and an incidence rate of 13.4-19.4% was found in the primary schools. All the cases were observed in asymptomatic children. The incidence of B. hominis was greater in children older than 3 years in the day care centres and in the 10-14 year-old group in the primary schools. A heavier parasitization was observed in the boys than in the girls and in the students of schools in areas of low socio-economic level. B. hominis was identified in 40 patients attending the Clinical Hospital (3.25% of all those studied). The maximum peak of incidence was found in subjects with ages between 10 and 14 years. A follow up study was performed on 18 patients parasitized exclusively by B. hominis; 7 of these were considered to have acute gastroenteritis and one chronic gastroenteritis associated with the protozoan. No statistically significant association was observed between the number of B. hominis cells and the presence of diarrhoea. Our results show that despite the high number of asymptomatic carriers of B. hominis in the juvenile population, this protozoan may be, on other occasions, responsible for gastrointestinal symptoms.

The results of this study allow us to identify important aspects to consider--from the perspective of the pedestrians--when constructing new PB and improving existing PB to increase use in areas with a high risk of pedestrian injuries.

There are few social epidemiologic studies on chickenpox outbreaks, although previous findings suggested the important role of social determinants. This study describes the context of a large outbreak of chickenpox in the Cauca Valley region, Colombia (2003 to 2007), with an emphasis on macro-determinants. We explored the temporal trends in chickenpox incidence in 42 municipalities to identify the places with higher occurrences. We analyzed municipal characteristics (education quality, vaccination coverage, performance of health care services, violence-related immigration, and area size of planted sugar cane) through analyses based on set theory. Edwards-Venn diagrams were used to present the main findings. The results indicated that three municipalities had higher incidences and that poor quality education was the attribute most prone to a higher incidence. Potential use of set theory for exploratory outbreak analyses is discussed. It is a tool potentially useful to contrast units when only small sample sizes are available.