Tamara Mancero

• Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)

Background: To identify gaps and define priority actions to strengthen national pandemic preparedness and response plans, we assessed the concordance between national plans for respiratory pathogens against the World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic checklist and the States Parties Annual Report (SPAR) in the Americas. Methods: In this retrosp...

Background International organizations advocate for the elimination of dog-mediated rabies, but there is only limited guidance on interpreting surveillance data for managing elimination programmes. With the regional programme in Latin America approaching elimination of dog-mediated rabies, we aimed to develop a tool to evaluate the programme’s perf...

Background: International organizations advocate for the elimination of dog-mediated rabies, but there is only limited guidance on interpreting surveillance data for managing elimination programmes. With the regional programme in Latin America approaching elimination of dog-mediated rabies, we aimed to develop a tool to evaluate the programme’s per...

Objective To provide surveillance tools to support policymakers andpractitioners to identify epidemiological situations and inform theprogressive implementation of rabies elimination programmes.IntroductionGlobal targets for elimination of human rabies mediated by dogshave been set for 2030. In the Americas countries are progressingtowards interrup...

These Guidelines aim to provide guidance to the implementation of ZIKV surveillance, based on the experience acquired during the ongoing epidemic in the Region of the Americas. This document provides overall guidance —albeit not exhaustive— on surveillance actions, which should be adapted by countries according to their capabilities, epidemiologica...

Background Recent studies have demonstrated the deletion of the histidine-rich protein 2 (PfHRP2) gene (pfhrp2) in field isolates of Plasmodium falciparum, which could result in false negative test results when PfHRP2-based rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) are used for malaria diagnosis. Although primary diagnosis of malaria in Honduras is determined...

Background Many small studies have been done in Honduras estimating soil-transmitted helminthiasis (STH) prevalence but a country-wide study was last done in 2005. The country has the highest burden of malaria among all Central American countries. The present study was done to estimate country-wide STH prevalence and intensity, malaria prevalence a...

Chloroquine (CQ) is officially used for the primary treatment of Plasmodium falciparum malaria in Honduras. In this study, the therapeutic efficacy of CQ for the treatment of uncomplicated P. falciparum malaria in the municipality of Puerto Lempira, Gracias a Dios, Honduras was evaluated using the Pan American Health Organization-World Health Organ...

Background: Although LLINs are effective up to 3 to 5 years, a major limiting factor to its prolonged use is the physical durability of the LLIN which depends on a number of human and cultural factors. No data is available for physical durability of LLINs in field conditions in Central American countries which this study explores. Methods: LLINs we...

Honduras is a tropical country with more than 70% of its population living at risk of being infected with either Plasmodium vivax or Plasmodium falciparum. Laboratory diagnosis is a very important factor for adequate treatment and management of malaria. In Honduras, malaria is diagnosed by both, microscopy and rapid diagnostic tests and to date, no...

Onchocerciasis is a leading cause of blindness worldwide, hence elimination of the infection is an important health priority. Community-based treatment programs with ivermectin form the basis of control programs for the disease in Latin America. The long-term administration of ivermectin could eliminate Onchocerca volvulus infection from endemic ar...

The immune response after early exposure to or infection with Onchocerca volvulus was investigated in an autochthonous focus caused by the migration of infected persons to a previously unaffected area in Ecuador. Peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) proliferative and cytokine responses (interferon [IFN]–γ and interleukin [IL]–5) to filarial ant...

The importance of racial factors in the epidemiology and clinical manifestations of onchocercosis in the Afro-Ecuadorian and Chachi indigenous races, two distinct ethnic groups in the hyperendemic area of the Ecuadorian onchocercal focus, were evaluated. No difference in the disease prevalence among the two races was noted, although the Chachi had...

Onchocerciasis is a major blinding disease in equatorial Africa and Central and South America. Ivermectin is a safe and effective drug in the treatment of this disease and now forms the basis of disease control in most endemic areas. We report the findings of long-term control of this infection in the Río Santiago focus in Ecuador, between January...

A retrospective study was performed comparing the number of spontaneous abortions in a hyperendemic area for onchocerciasis in Ecuador before and after ivermectin treatment with that of a comparable non-endemic area. The frequency of spontaneous abortions was associated with a change in the community microfilarial load, suggesting that there may be...

In a random study of 75 Ecuadorian patienis with cutaneous leishmaniasis, the objective was to determine the therapeutical index of a new oral antileishmania drug, allopurinol- riboside (AR) plus probenecid. This agent was evaluated by comparing its effect with positive controls treated with pentostam (Sb) and with other controls who received no tr...

Se realizó un estudio epidemiológico, clínico y serológico del pian en la cuenca del río Santiago, cantón Eloy Alfaro, provincia de Esmeraldas, el cual demostró una prevalencia del 11,3% con lesiones dérmicas activas y una seropositividad del 94,9%. El área del río Santiago era hiperendémica para el pian (prevalencia 17,9%; seropositividad 98,0%),...