In order to participate in a field investigation and to prospect for new local collaborations, the researchers Marcelo Urbano Ferreira and Jorge Seixas, from GHTM Individual Health Care (IHC) Research Group went on a mission to Brazil, between 1st July to 12th July. The mission also included Simone Ladeia Andrade from Fundação Oswaldo Cruz.
The mission was focused on field research, as part of the ongoing project on malaria in the Alto Juruá – an extractive reserve in the state of Acre and the region of Brazil with the highest incidence of this disease. Research and medical care activities were carried out in seven riverside communities along Rio Azul (Bom Sossego, Queimadas, Bom Jesus, Nova Lição, Buritis and Três Unidos) and Rio Moa (São Salvador), in municipality of Mâncio Lima.
As the IHC Research Group Coordinator mentioned, in this mission “approximately 300 medical consultations were performed in General and Family Medicine and Infectious Diseases/Tropical Medicine, with near 30 hemoglobin dosages and 10 rapid tests conducted for malaria”.
The visits were held in schools, individual domicile or health care units, and “the activities in São Salvador were accompanied by Isac Lima, mayor of Mâncio Lima, and Joice G. Mota, health secretary of Mâncio Lima, with whom we met by the end of the field investigation”, told Marcelo Urbano Ferreira.
During this mission, the GHTM researchers prospected for research and training in Tropical Disease clinics in this part of the Amazon, in partnership with the University of São Paulo and the Federal University of Acre (Campus Cruzeiro do Sul and Campus Mâncio Lima). There was also an opportunity to meet Rodrigo Medeiros de Souza, professor of Campus Floresta and Campus Cruzeiro do Sul of Federal University of Acre, and to visit the laboratories and research infrastructures.