Papers by Francisco Lemos
A dengue e uma doenca causada por um arbovirus, que ocorre principalmente em areas tropicais e su... more A dengue e uma doenca causada por um arbovirus, que ocorre principalmente em areas tropicais e subtropicais do mundo, inclusive no Brasil. O principal vetor da dengue e o mosquito Aedes aegypti. Esta doenca e uma das maiores preocupacoes mundiais na area de saude publica. Como nao ha uma vacina a disposicao da populacao, campanhas vem sendo realizadas pelo Ministerio da Saude, junto as Secretarias de Saude. Porem, essas campanhas nao enfocam de maneira clara o vetor da dengue. Isto leva a um despreparo da populacao para atuar de forma eficaz no controle do Ae. aegypti. Este artigo apresenta registros de algumas das atividades que vem sendo desenvolvidas pelo projeto “Aedes aegypti: conhecer para combater”, cujo objetivo principal e apresentar o Ae. aegypti aos alunos do Ensino Fundamental e Medio do Municipio de Campos dos Goytacazes. Nas exposicoes realizadas em escolas publicas, os alunos observam o mosquito em todas as suas fases de vida. Adicionalmente o projeto atua com minicur...
Epidemiologia e Serviços de Saúde, 2008
Durante estudo biológico e ecológico sobre mosquitos levado a cabo em área com registro de epidem... more Durante estudo biológico e ecológico sobre mosquitos levado a cabo em área com registro de epidemia de febre amarela silvestre e epizootia em macacos, foram encontrados adultos de Aedes albopictus. A tendência da espécie para invadir ambiente extradomiciliar potencializa a chance de infecção natural, ao tempo em que evolui para formar um elo entre focos naturais do vírus e o ambiente urbano. Esta Nota Técnica representa um alerta aos gestores dos três poderes públicos sobre perspectivas de mudanças no perfil epidemiológico atual da febre amarela no Brasil. Palavras-chave:febre amarela silvestre; Aedes albopictus; vigilância vetorial.
Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo, 2011
The Ministry of Health's National Human Rabies Control Program advocates pre-exposure prophyl... more The Ministry of Health's National Human Rabies Control Program advocates pre-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for professionals involved with animals that are at risk of contracting rabies. We report an antemortem and postmortem diagnosis of rabies in a veterinarian who became infected when handling herbivores with rabies. The antemortem diagnosis was carried out with a saliva sample and a biopsy of hair follicles using molecular biology techniques, while the postmortem diagnosis used a brain sample and conventional techniques. The veterinarian had collected samples to diagnose rabies in suspect herbivores (bovines and caprines) that were subsequently confirmed to be positive in laboratory tests. After onset of classic rabies symptoms, saliva and hair follicles were collected and used for antemortem diagnostic tests and found to be positive by RT-PCR. Genetic sequencing showed that the infection was caused by variant 3 (Desmodus rotundus), a finding confirmed by tests on the brain sam...
Insect biochemistry and …, 2002
A large amount of heme is produced upon digestion of red cell hemoglobin in the midgut of mosquit... more A large amount of heme is produced upon digestion of red cell hemoglobin in the midgut of mosquitoes. The interaction between heme and the peritrophic matrix (PM) was studied in Aedes aegypti. By light microscopy, the PM appeared as a light brownish layer between the intestinal epithelium and the alimentary bolus. This natural color can be attributed to the presence of heme bound to the matrix. In histochemical studies, a diffuse peroxidase activity of the heme molecules was clearly observed between the erythrocytes and the PM at 14 h after the blood meal. This activity tends to increase and concentrate in the PM reaching its maximum thickness at 24 h after feeding. Most of the heme of the PM was found associated to with enormous number of small electron-dense granules. The amount of heme bound to the PM increased in parallel with the progression of digestion, reaching a maximum at 48 h after feeding, when 18 nmol of heme were found in an individual matrix. The association of heme with PM from insects fed with plasma is saturable, suggesting the existence of specific binding sites for hemin in the PM. Taken all together, our data indicate that the PM performs a central role in heme detoxification in this insect.
Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo, 2011
The Ministry of Health&am... more The Ministry of Health's National Human Rabies Control Program advocates pre-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for professionals involved with animals that are at risk of contracting rabies. We report an antemortem and postmortem diagnosis of rabies in a veterinarian who became infected when handling herbivores with rabies. The antemortem diagnosis was carried out with a saliva sample and a biopsy of hair follicles using molecular biology techniques, while the postmortem diagnosis used a brain sample and conventional techniques. The veterinarian had collected samples to diagnose rabies in suspect herbivores (bovines and caprines) that were subsequently confirmed to be positive in laboratory tests. After onset of classic rabies symptoms, saliva and hair follicles were collected and used for antemortem diagnostic tests and found to be positive by RT-PCR. Genetic sequencing showed that the infection was caused by variant 3 (Desmodus rotundus), a finding confirmed by tests on the brain sample. It is essential that professionals who are at risk of infection by the rabies virus undergo pre-exposure prophylaxis. This study also confirms that molecular biology techniques were used successfully for antemortem diagnosis and therefore not only allow therapeutic methods to be developed, but also enable the source of infection in human rabies cases to be identified accurately and quickly.
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Papers by Francisco Lemos