Background: Excess body fat has been growing alarmingly among adolescents, especially in low income and middle income countries where access to health services is scarce. Currently, the main method for assessing overweight in adolescents is the body mass index, but its use is criticized for its low sensitivity and high specificity, which may lead to a late diagnosis of comorbidities associated with excess body fat, such as cardiovascular diseases. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop a computational model using linear regression to predict obesity in adolescents and compare it with commonly used anthropometric methods. To improve the performance of our model, we estimated the percentage of fat and then classified the nutritional status of these adolescents. Methods: The model was developed using easily measurable socio-demographic and clinical variables from a database of 772 adolescents of both genders, aged 10–19 years. The predictive performance was evaluated by the following metrics: accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and area under ROC curve. The performance of the method was compared to the anthropometric parameters: body mass index and waist-to-height ratio. Results: Our model showed a high correlation (R = 0.80) with the body fat percentage value obtained through bioimpedance. In addition, regarding discrimination, our model obtained better results compared to BMI and WHtR: AUROC = 0.80, 0.64, and 0.55, respectively. It also presented a high sensitivity of 92% and low false negative rate (6%), while BMI and WHtR showed low sensitivity (27% and 9.9%) and a high false negative rate (65% and 53%), respectively. Conclusions: The computational model of this study obtained a better performance in the evaluation of excess body fat in adolescents, compared to the usual anthropometric indicators presenting itself as a low cost alternative for screening obesity in adolescents living in Brazilian regions where financial resources are scarce.

We evaluate the genetic characterization of 132 HIV‐1 pol sequences from children and adolescents undergoing antiretroviral therapy in Northeast Brazil. Phylogenetic and recombination analyses were performed using the maximum likelihood method using SeaView version 4 and SIMPLOT software. Most individuals harbored HIV‐1 B (84.8%) and BF recombinants (9.8%), although other non‐B subtypes were detected: HIV‐1 C (1.5%), HIV‐1 F (2.4%), and BC recombinants (1.5%). Antiretroviral resistance was 47% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 38.7%–55.4%). Non‐nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) showed higher frequencies of primary mutations, with 40.9% (95% CI: 32.9%–49.4%), followed by nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI) and protease inhibitors (PIs) with 34.8% (95% CI: 27.3–43.3) and 6.1% (95% CI: 3.1%–11.5%), respectively. Among NRTIs, higher resistance levels were observed for abacavir, emtricitabine, and lamivudine; for NNRTI, nevirapine and efavirenz. The most common primary mutations found were M184V (29.5%), K103N (25%), M41L (9.8%), T215Y (8.3%), and G190A (8.3%). Our findings highlight the importance of surveillance of resistance mutations, which contributes to the continuous updating and implementation of preventive measures to decrease mother‐to‐child‐transmission and transmitted drug resistance.

The HIV-1 epidemic in Brazil has been growing in northeast and north regions, particularly an increase in AIDS cases among the younger male population has been observed. This study aims to characterize the HIV-1 genetic diversity and to evaluate its antiretroviral resistance profile among individuals presenting virological failure in the state of Maranhão-Brazil. HIV-1 pol gene sequences from 633 patients on antiretroviral therapy were obtained from the Department of Surveillance, Prevention and Control of Sexually Transmitted Infections, HIV/AIDS and Viral Hepatitis of the Brazilian Ministry of Health. Phylogenetic and recombination analyses were performed to characterize viral genetic diversity. The presence of antiretroviral resistance mutations was assessed using the HIV Drug Resistance Database online platform of Stanford University. A predominance of subtype B (84.5%) was observed, followed by recombinant BF (9.5%), where more than half of the sequences were dispersed in 3 clusters. Antiretroviral resistance was detected in 74.1% of the sequences, and it was significantly higher for nucleoside analogue reverse-transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) than for non-nucleoside analogue reverse-transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs) and protease inhibitors (PIs). Inference of putative transmissions clusters identified 11 clusters with 22 query sequences (22/633, 3.5%). Thus, we conclude that continuous monitoring of the molecular epidemiology of HIV-1 is essential for prevention strategies, epidemic control, and treatment adequacy.

A hanseníase é caracterizada como uma doença de pele infectocontagiosa, causada pelo bacilo Mycobacterium leprae. O Brasil é o segundo pais com maior incidência de casos desta doença, o que demonstra a necessidade de um acompanhamento diferenciado e multiprofissional em pacientes acometidos pela Hanseníase e entre os profissionais habilitados para este cuidado está o profissional farmacêutico. Visando prospectar e pontuar técnicas em atenção farmacêutica nos cuidados de pacientes hansênicos, realizou-se uma revisão integrativa e descritiva da literatura acerca dos cuidados farmacêuticos ao paciente com Hanseníase considerando trabalhos publicados entre 2012 e 2022. Após a implementação dos critérios de inclusão e exclusão, foram selecionadas 22 publicações, onde foram extraídas as informações. Todos os artigos relataram diversas formas de cuidados farmacêuticos realizados no Brasil, e como destaque o acompanhamento farmacoterapêutico (86,3%, N=19), em seguida, a educação em saúde (63,6%, N=14). Com base nos resultados, observa-se que o acompanhamento farmacoterapêutico foi o cuidado farmacêutico mais presente dentre os artigos selecionados. Esta revisão fortalece a importância da atenção farmacêutica e a uma maior inserção deste profissional na saúde pública por tratar-se de um profissional habilitado, com conhecimentos e habilidades na dispensação dos cuidados ao paciente com Hanseníase.

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