Abstract
Purpose :
To estimate the trends in the burden of trachoma among school children in Santa Catarina state, Brazil, in the period 2008-2013.
Methods :
An ecological study was carried out using data from government’s secondary sources regarding trachoma rates in the school-aged population. The burden of trachoma was estimated in Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) rates, stratified for age (0-4, 5-9, 10-14 and 15-19 years) and gender. The trends of DALYs rates were observed by the annual percentage variation obtained through segmented linear regression analysis. The present study was approved by University of Southern Santa Catarina Ethics Committee.
Results :
A total 4,877 cases were confirmed, 94.7% follicular trachoma, 2.6% intense inflammatory trachoma, 2.3% scarring trachoma, 0.2% trichiasis trachoma and 0.2% corneal opacification.
Table 1 shows the number of cases, DALYs, standardized DALY rates per 100.000 inhabitants per year and the annual percentage variation (APV) of DALYs/100.000 inhabitants due to trachoma in the period of 2008-2013. The year of 2010 had the highest number of cases reported (n=1.334) while 2009 gathered the largest DALY rate (2.55 DALY/100.000). There was a discrete but not statistically significant decline in trends for trachoma in the period analyzed (-1.1% per year; CI 95% -23.7; 28.2).
Table 2 depicts the distribution of DALYs and standardized rates/100.000 inhabitants according to gender and age groups. Females showed the highest rates of DALYs in most years, with the exception of 2010-2011. The year of 2009 presented the highest DALY’s rate amongst women (4.76 DALYs/100.000) while males experienced a peak in 2012 (3.49 DALYs/100.000). The age group of 5-9 years of age showed the highest rates of DALYs in 2008, 2010, 2012 and 2013 while the group of 10-14 was responsible for the years of 2009 and 2011 (1.74 DALYs/100.000 and 1.79 DALYs/100.000, respectively).
Conclusions :
There was no significant variation in the burden of trachoma among school children in the period from 2008 to 2013 in Santa Catarina state, Brazil.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.