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Health

In the 100 years of Chagas, Fiocruz search the second remedy against the disease

This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.

 

Luiz Augusto Gollo 
Reporter Agency Brazil

 
Rio de Janeiro - On the centenary of the discovery of Chagas, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz (IOC) is preparing for the coming months the start of human trials of new drugs based on selenium, one subtracted from the elements in the body by disease.

The head of the IOC, Tānia Araśjo-Jorge, who led the research, said the animal tests were successfully completed and now is fulfilled the number of protocols of the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) for tests with the carriers , in the process of selection among the 1,200 registered in the Institute of Clinical Research Evandro Chagas, also of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz).

The importance of this research can be gauged by the fact that in 100 years, Chagas disease be fought with a single drug, benznidazole, which causes harmful side effects, can not be administered for longer periods and less effective against the growing number of transmitters. "Chagas' disease is poor, more specifically the poor in Latin America," explains the researcher. "This is the main reason for having only one remedy to date, although interest has been increasing in the United States, Canada, Germany and even in Japan, because the disease has also reached the developed world."

Chagas disease arrived in these countries through blood transfusion and organ transplants from donors immigrants with the disease. Although medicine and appliances are sophisticated in Europe and North America, Tania says that they are not prepared to discover whether the blood or organs are infected with a disease that is not in your reality. "Since only 30% of those infected show symptoms, the parasite is not expressed in most of their patients," she adds, as a justification to infection elsewhere.

As the world in scientific research in general, which is developed at the Instituto Oswaldo Cruz no time to reach any result, but Tania Araśjo-Jorge estimates in seven years time to see if the patient tests the new drug encouraging results. "It is possible, we can not say anything, unless, with all right, the government will have to play the new product because the international pharmaceutical industry has no interest in making a remedy for those who can not buy."

In Africa, India and the countries of Asia and Oceania are not transmitters of Chagas disease in Latin America do not stop them from multiplying and, by accounts of the director of the IOC, totaling over 100 in Brazil alone. "They are vectors in poor areas, enter through cracks in houses, are in the woods, plants and animals, while in Cochabamba, Bolivia, has been found transmitter in an urban area in brick houses. We must monitor environmental changes, such as heating, to also monitor the transmission. "

In Brazil, whose population of infected rotates between 4 million and 6 million, Chagas disease is tackled in "three major lines of action," said Tania: the continuous study and investigation of the use of benznidazole, research into new drugs to parasite resistance and strengthening of the patient. It acts on three, but its main focus is the patient and not the parasite. "Patients are already a priority for transplants since the first heart transplant done in the country for more than 40 years, also deserve special attention to the implementation of a cardiac pacemaker."

The expectation of doctors and researchers is that in 50 years, Chagas disease is under control, mainly because there are no infected children, the chronically ill are undergoing treatment and elderly fulfilling their life cycle - which also contributes to gradual reduction of the universe of the disease. Tania Araśjo-Jorge believes that the development of the country, with infrastructure works and social character, is also a positive factor in the fight against evil centenary.

On the other hand, decentralization of the fight to the transmitters, implemented from 1999 with the transfer of federal actions to the municipal level, causes concern among researchers from Fiocruz itself recognizes the director of the institute. "It is essential to keep teams prepared in the cities, able to identify transmitters and situations where they are, like plants, rodents, marsupials and other host animals that transmit the disease. We do the distribution of material for combat in all regions of the country, with precise instructions on what to do. "

And he ends: "But the Chagas disease will never be extinguished because it is in nature, as I said, in the woods, plants, animals and humans interacting in this environment. Therefore, the contamination has been growing in the Amazon, where the population does not stop growing. "

Source: Agencia Brazil

 

This article was translated by an automatic translation system, and was therefore not reviewed by people.

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