67 / 201
mais referidas. O contacto com os roedores, seguido dos canídeos, foi referido por
97% e 41% dos doentes com resultado positivo.
Quanto à proveniência, a maioria dos doentes veio de áreas suburbanas o que
respeita à ocupação destacaram-se as mulheres camponesas, estudantes e
domésticas.
Os soros com resultado positivo mostraram reactividade específica para leptospiras
de 19 serogrupos (serovares) com maior destaque, Icterohaemorrhagiae
(Copenhageni), Hebdomadis, Javanica (Poi) Australis (Bratislava) e Sejroe
(Hardjobovis). O título mais elevado foi de 1:800 observado para os serovares
Copenhageni, Ballum (Arborea),
Panama e Pyrogenes.
Os resultados obtidos mostraram que a Leptospirose está presente entre os doentes
febris na província da Huíla, sendo importante incluir esta zoonose no diagnóstico
diferencial e promover medidas de prevenção e controlo, especialmente nos grupos
de risco agora identificados.
OLIVEIRA, Marta M. de FiGUEIREDO (2014) Optimization of screening
methods for the evaluation of the antileismanial potential of
halophytes and macroalgae from the Iberian Coast, Dissertação de
Mestrado em Parasitologia Médica, IHMT, Lisboa.
Leishmaniases are parasitic diseases caused by
Leishmania
parasites, which are
transmitted to mammals by the bite of sand flies. In the Mediterranean basin,
L.
infantum
is the etiological agent of human visceral leishmaniasis, the most severe
form of the disease. The obvious limitations of current available drugs still provide an
undoubtedly motivation for research of novel compounds with antileishmanial
potential. In the last decades, marine organisms or species living in a terrestrial
habitat strongly influenced by the sea have been shown to be potential sources of
rich bioactive compounds. Thus, the search for marine natural products with
antileishmanial activity has gathered interest and, as a result, some promising
extracts and compounds have been described. For assessment of the
in vitro
activity
of natural extracts mainly axenic promastigotes and amastigotes have been used.
Although the amastigote-macrophage system remains the ideal model, its use has
been neglected mainly due to the lack of sensitive and rapid
in vitro
screening
methods, which rely on the inherent difficulties of the intracellular stage. In this
context, the main objective of this work is to contribute for the study of the
antileishmanial potential of macroalgae and halophytes, through the optimization of
screening methods focusing on the intracellular amastigote form. The direct counting
method was optimized and used for the assessment of extracts activity against
intracellular amastigotes. Concerning the parasite rescue assay, lysis conditions
were established. However, aberrant results were obtained when the effect of