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Biomedical subjects

L C Rodrigues

Publications and source records attributed to L C Rodrigues.

84 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed1991

BCG vaccination in the first year of life protects children of Indian subcontinent ethnic origin against tuberculosis in England.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: The aim was to assess the protection conferred by BCG given during the first year of life against tuberculosis among children of Asian ethnic origin born in England. DESIGN: This was a matched case-control study. SETTING: Cases were selected from notifications of tuberculosis and controls were selected from child health or school health records in 14 English health districts. PARTICIPANTS: 111 cases of childhood tuberculosis with Asian names were selected. For each case there were five controls with Asian names, matched for age, sex and district of birth. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Child health or school health records were searched to determine the proportions of cases and controls who had been vaccinated with BCG. Overall, BCG vaccination given in the first year of life was estimated to confer 49% protection against tuberculosis with 95% confidence interval 14-62%. CONCLUSIONS: BCG vaccination in infancy was found to be associated with a lower protective efficacy than has been found for the secondary school age BCG programme (80%) but nevertheless the protection is substantial and, in the United Kingdom, BCG vaccination of infants considered to be at relatively higher risk of tuberculosis is likely to reduce the incidence of childhood tuberculosis.

Asia, Western↗
PubMed1990

Effectiveness of BCG vaccination against tuberculous meningitis: a case-control study in São Paulo, Brazil.

A case-control study was carried out in the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, Brazil, to determine the protection against tuberculous meningitis conferred by BCG vaccination to children aged less than 5 years. The BCG vaccination coverage in the study area was about 88%. A total of 72 tuberculous meningitis patients were studied as well as 505 neighbourhood and 81 hospital controls. Analysis of the data using a conditional logistic regression for matched case-control studies indicated that the efficacy of BCG was similar for both groups of controls, that for neighbourhood controls (84.5%) being slightly greater than that for hospital controls (80.2%). No significant interactions were found between vaccination status and sex, age, or socioeconomic status.

BCG Vaccine↗
PubMed1989

Evaluation of factors influencing vaccine uptake in Mozambique.

A pulse immunization project was started in Mozambique to compensate for the decrease in routine immunization caused by destabilization. A study was conducted to evaluate the project and identify determinants of vaccination in urban and rural areas of Mozambique. Vaccine coverage based on a documented record, the 'Road to Health' card, was 53% in urban and 60% in rural project areas, and 12% higher if a verbal history of vaccination was considered. A further 17% of children would have received effective vaccination if the correct schedule had been followed for all vaccines given and all preventive health services contacts had been used for vaccination. Factors relating to the individual mother and child and factors relating to the clusters were investigated for their association with vaccine uptake. Those which showed a strong negative association included vaccination on offer at the nearest vaccination post for only a small number of days per week; cancellation of an outreach session; knowing a child with a post-vaccination abscess; child born at home; at least five children in the family; mother's inability to speak Portuguese and her inability to name at least two target diseases. Improving the supervision of health services and immunizing at least three days per week at permanent immunization clinic sites may be the most important measures to improve coverage further.

Adult↗
PubMed1984

Assessment of the protective efficacy of vaccines against common diseases using case-control and cohort studies.

Case-control and cohort studies may be employed to assess the protective efficacy of vaccines. The appropriate measure of vaccine efficacy is shown to depend upon the mode of action of the vaccination. Two models of vaccine action are considered. In the first, vaccination is assumed to reduce the instantaneous disease-rate in the total vaccinated population by a constant proportion and, in the second, vaccination is assumed to render a constant proportion of individuals totally immune from the disease. The implications of these two models on the behaviour of different measures of vaccine efficacy in cohort studies is explored. It is shown that the design of case-control studies to measure vaccine efficacy is dependent upon which model is considered appropriate. In particular, under the second model, individuals who have already had the disease under study should not be excluded from the control group.

Drug Evaluation↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Tuberculosis in developing countries and methods for its control.

Tuberculosis is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries. It is estimated that one-fifth of the world population is infected, 12-16 million people have the disease, every year 6-8 million develop tuberculosis and 2-3 million die from it. Four methods for the prevention of tuberculosis are available: improvement of socio-economic conditions, case-finding and treatment, chemoprophylaxis, and vaccination. Each of these methods is examined in relation to a model of the chain of transmission and development of disease. Improvement of socio-economic conditions, responsible for the decline of tuberculosis in the developed world, must be seen as a long-term solution. Case-finding and treatment is the only method expected to have an important short-term impact on transmission. A summary of the results of 35 studies shows the estimated efficacy of bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination ranging from 96% to none. Follow-up results from 10 controlled trials are consistent with waning of BCG protective efficacy with time since vaccination. Chemoprophylaxis and vaccination are expected to protect the individual but not to have a significant short-term impact on transmission.

Antitubercular Agents↗
PubMedDate not supplied

An initial examination of the epidemiology of malaria in the state of Roraima, in the Brazilian Amazon basin.

This study firstly describes the epidemiology of malaria in Roraima, Amazon Basin in Brazil, in the years from 1991 to 1993: the predominance of plasmodium species, distribution of the blood slides examined, the malaria risk and seasonality; and secondly investigates whether population growth from 1962 to 1993 was associated with increasing risk of malaria. Frequency of malaria varied significantly by municipality. Marginally more malaria cases were reported during the dry season (from October to April), even after controlling for by year and municipality. Vivax was the predominant type in all municipalities but the ratio of plasmodium types varied between municipalities. No direct association between population growth and increasing risk of malaria from 1962 to 1993 was detected. Malaria in Roraima is of the "frontier" epidemiological type with high epidemic potential.

Analysis of Variance↗