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. 2019 May 25;16(10):1852.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph16101852.

Malaria and Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome in Gold Mining in the Amazon Region, Brazil

Ana Cláudia Pereira Terças-Trettel  1   2 , Elaine Cristina de Oliveira  3 , Cor Jesus Fernandes Fontes  4 , Alba Valéria Gomes de Melo  5 , Renata Carvalho de Oliveira  6 , Alexandro Guterres  7 , Jorlan Fernandes  8 , Raphael Gomes da Silva  9 , Marina Atanaka  10 , Mariano Martinez Espinosa  11 , Elba Regina Sampaio de Lemos  12
Affiliations

Malaria and Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome in Gold Mining in the Amazon Region, Brazil

Ana Cláudia Pereira Terças-Trettel et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

People living in mining regions are exposed to numerous biological agents by several specific types of transmission mechanisms. This study is designed to describe fatal hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) cases confirmed by serology and molecular analysis, where a seroprevalence survey was conducted in the gold mining regions of the state of Mato Grosso, in the official Amazon region, Brazil. Two fatal cases of HPS were confirmed in a mining area in the Legal Amazon, where malaria is one of the most important public health problems. A molecular analysis detected the presence of the genome of the Castelo dos Sonhos virus. Out of the 112 blood samples analyzed, five were positive for Plasmodium infection (four P. falciparum and one P. vivax), and four were seropositive for hantavirus, showing a seroprevalence of 3.57%. One of the four miners who was seroreactive for hantavirus concomitantly had P. falciparum infection, which was confirmed by thick blood smear. This manuscript highlights the importance of considering hantavirus pulmonary syndrome as a diagnostic possibility in febrile infection associated with pulmonary manifestations in mining areas where malaria cases are often identified.

Keywords: differential diagnosis; hantavirus pulmonary syndrome; infectious diseases epidemiology; malaria.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The geographic location of the study areas, gold mining regions of Mato Grosso, Brazil 2016.
Figure 2
Figure 2
An X-ray of Patient 1 at the time of admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), Mato Grosso, Brazil, 2015
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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