The epidemiological delimitation of lymphatic filariasis in an endemic area of Brazil, 41 years after the first recorded case.

AbstractIn 2002, the status of lymphatic filariasis (LF) in the district of Jaboatao, in north-eastern Brazil, was reviewed, 41 years after the first case of the disease was recorded in the area. Current data from Jaboatao were compared with older information from the district that had been published, as official reports on filariasis cases and mosquitoes and as the result of population surveys, between 1948 and 1997. Although the first microfilaria-positive cases were detected in the district in 1959, it was not until 1993 that the national Ministry of Health categorized Jaboatao as an endemic area. In 2002, fingerprick samples of blood, each of about 50 μl, were collected at night (23.00–01.00 hours) from 4365 individuals in the district and used to make thick smears. Microfilariae were detected in the smears of blood from 33 (0.8%) of the subjects, 12 of whom were considered autochthonous cases of LF. The male subjects were significantly more likely to be microfilaraemic than the female (1.1% v. 0.4%; ...