Two domestic guinea-pigs (Cavia porcellus), bought in Pinheros, São Paulo State, Brazil, were taken by their owners to a farm in the rural district of Capão Bonito, close to the Atlantic Forest, São Paulo, where they both developed tumour-like and ulcerating lesions on the ears. The causative agent was identified as Leishmania (L.) enriettii, based on biological characters and isoenzyme profiles. Sources of the parasite in wild mammals, and the possible sandfly vector species are discussed.
This short communication informs the discovery of Trypanosoma rangeli for the first time at Triângulo Mineiro region, South-east of Brazil, a highly endemic area of Chagas' disease and also the natural infection of Didelphis albiventris with the same trypanosome. Both the findings were demonstrated through blood smears, xenodiagnosis, microhematocrit technics and PCR. The last one was realized in faeces and hemolymph of Triatoma infestans utilizing as controls strains of T. rangeli from Colombia.
Entamoeba gingivalis is found only in its trophozoite form and it is postulated that its main transmission mechanism is through the kiss. E. gingivalis is considered pathogenic by some authors and commensal to others. It does not have a defined role in the installation of disease. To address some of this questions we studied a 100 patients who were seen through the Odontological Hospital from the Universidade Federal de Uberlândia in order to determine its frequency in the buccal cavity. The material were collected using swabs from four different buccal sites and the smears were stained by a modified Papanicolaou technique. The results revealed positivity index of 62%. The affinity of the dye to the food vacuole contents and to the ingested bacterias prevents clear visualisation of the central and peripherical chromatin constituents of the parasite's nucleus. Mouth washes with 3ml of saline from 10 patients, were used to evaluate which parasitological method of diagnosis (fresh, iron-haematoxylin stained, Giemsa and Papanicolaou) gives better visualisation of the parasite. The mouth washes sediment from fresh material revealed 100% of positivity and clear visualisation of the free form and locomotion of the trophozoites. No stained technique of the smear showed adequate visualisation, presenting the nucleus partially covered by the food vacuoles. In stained preparations by toluidine blue ultrastructure analysis of the morphology of parasite can be observed.
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