Sociodemographic, clinical and geospatial profile of new leprosy cases diagnosed at institute Lauro de Souza Lima - Bauru/São Paulo, between 2015 and 2019

• Autor(a) principal: Chagas, Lilian Beatriz Moreira de Oliveira
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Oliveira, Nathan Guilherme de, Baptista, Ida Maria Foschiani Dias, Nieto Brito de Souza, Vânia
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Hansenologia Internationalis (Online)
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.saude.sp.gov.br/hansenologia/article/view/37428
• topic: Hanseníase. Epidemiologia descritiva. Mapeamento Geográfico.; Leprosy. Descriptive epidemiology. Geographic Mapping.; Lepra. Epidemiología descriptiva. Mapeo Geográfico.

Although Brazil has shown a considerable reduction in the number of new cases of leprosy, some studies have shown active transmission even in non-endemic areas, such as São Paulo state. Considering this, we investigated the sociodemographic, clinical, and geospatial profile of new cases of leprosy diagnosed between 2015 and 2019 at the Lauro de Souza Lima Institute (ILSL) a reference center localized in Bauru, a municipality in the interior of São Paulo state. A total of 177 new cases of leprosy were diagnosed in this period, with 61.6% of the patients born inthe state. Most of the individuals were male (59.9%), the most prevalent age group was 60 to 69 years old, 79.1% declared themselves white color/race and 65.6% had little or no schooling. The borderline form of leprosy was the most frequent (42.4%), slit skin smear was positive in 38.4% of patients (49.0% among men and 22.5% among women) and 49.0% had disabilities at diagnosis. Georeferencing,performed for cases from the municipality of Bauru (n = 31), revealed that most patients lived in regions with a high level of social vulnerability. The profile of leprosy new cases found at ILSL pointed to a predominance of adult or elderly men with low education, multibacillary, presenting physical disabilities and a long time of symptoms. Altogether, our data suggests a delay in diagnosis that may contribute to the maintenance of leprosy transmission even in a non-endemic region.