Routine Vaccination for Travelers from Emerging Countries: Epidemiological Profile of a Public Travel Medicine Clinic in Sao Paulo/Brazil

Abstract

Introduction: Emerging countries have increased their presence in international travel (46.8% of travels). Pre- and post-travel consultations may provide insights about travelers’ health. Methods: A retrospective descriptive analysis of the medical data of all travelers assisted at Ambulatório dos Viajantes, a free public health clinic for travelers in São Paulo, Brazil, from January to December 2016 was performed. The patients were profiled based on post-travel consultation data and screened by gender, age according to the United Nations working-age population distribution (0-14 years, children; 15-24 years, youths; 25-65 years, working age; over 65 years, older persons), travel destination, and diseases that affected travelers. Results: In 2016 (n=280 appointments), 93.92% of clients received some type of vaccine (regular or booster dose). Post-travel consultations (n=27; 9.64%) were predominantly male (62.96% of appointments) and comprised cases of malaria (44.4%; 6 positive cases of Plasmodium falciparum, 4 positive cases of Plasmodium vivax, and 2 unclassified), fever (7.4%), AGE - acute gastroenteritis (7.4%), hepatitis A (3.7%), nausea (3.7%), insect bite (3.7%), abdominal pain (3.7%), arthralgia (3.7%), vaginal discharge (3.7%), and cases under investigation (18.5%). Brazilian travelers presented the same incidence of post-travel counseling as developed countries’ travel medicine clinics (~9%). Conclusion: Immunization in pre-travel counseling may reduce the importation of preventable infectious diseases and increase Brazilians’ traveler vaccine coverage, a current concern in the country.

Avaliação de Cards em Posts de Rede Social Facebook para Campanha Educativa da Prevenção de Sarampo

“…Apresenta-se em oito classes de (A-H) e vinte e quatro subclasses conhecidas como genótipos, nome dado ao conjunto do material genético do vírus (A, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, D1, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, D8, D9, D10, D11, E, F, G1, G2, G3, H1 e H2), que se referem as variantes do material genético de RNA do vírus do sarampo (MOSS, 2017). No Brasil, a atual epidemia foi identificada pelo Centro de Vigilância Epidemiológica como sendo o genótipo D8 (WHO, 2019) que teria adentrado o país por viajantes vindos da Europa e dos EUA, em função de ser do mesmo genótipo D8 e, também, serem países que vivem o surto (FUJITA et al, 2019;LOPES, 2019).…”