Even after more than a century of research, scientists and physicians were unaware of any specific clinical and laboratory predictors of mortality that could help prioritize admission to hospital intensive care units, which would be extremely useful given that patients with yellow fever often deteriorate rapidly. “said Esper KallcEF? 1/2 s, Full Professor in the Department of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases at the University of ScEF? 1/2 o Paulo’s Medical School (FM-USP) in Brazil. “
We had no previous knowledge of markers that could be used by medical teams to assess each patient’s prognosis and identify those most likely to develop severe illness to treat them accordingly, improving the probability of recovery,” KallcEF? 1/2 s said.
They focused on patients with suspected yellow fever admitted to the Hospital das ClcEF? 1/2 nicas, FM-USP’s general hospital and IIER-SP, both in ScEF? 1/2 o Paulo city, during the 2018 outbreak of the disease.
Between January 11 and May 10, 2018, 118 and 113 patients with suspected yellow fever were admitted to the Hospital das ClcEF? 1/2 nicas and IIER-SP, respectively.
Disease markers The researchers found that the older the patient, the more severe the yellow fever illness tended to be. “
The organism may be trying to combat something other than the yellow fever virus,” KallcEF? 1/2 s said. “
As in the case of advancing age, it seems logical that the patient’s prognosis worsens as the viral load increases, but it’s the first time anyone has verified this in a scientific study,” KallcEF? 1/2 s said.
According to Sabino, the study represents significant progress by enabling physicians ” in the event of an outbreak of yellow fever such as the one now under way in Brazil, the worst in decades, to screen patients on arrival at health services to identify those who could potentially develop severe illness.
The major yellow fever epidemics that occurred in the advanced industrialized countries, which have more medical and scientific resources to identify such markers, happened decades ago, mostly before development of the vaccine, which began to be tested 80 years ago, before World War Two,” KallcEF? 1/2 s said.
In 2017, at the onset of the latest outbreak of yellow fever in Brazil, KallcEF? 1/2 s, Sabino and collaborators conducted a follow-up study of patients with dengue, chikungunya and Zika in an attempt to predict the transmission and distribution of these diseases, all of which are caused by arboviruses (arthropod-borne viruses).