INTRODUCTION: Although the spectrum of fungi causing bloodstream fungal infections continues to expand, Candida spp. remains responsible for the majority of these cases. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to characterize the candidemia epidemiology, species distribution and antifungal susceptibility patterns at a Brazilian tertiary teaching public hospital with 2,500 beds. METHODS: Records from the microbiology laboratory were used to identify patients with positive blood cultures during 2006. The in vitro activity of amphotericin B, caspofungin, itraconazole, fluconazole, voricanozole, and posaconazole were determined using the Etest method. RESULTS: One hundred and thirty-six cases of candidemia were identified and 100 strains were available for antifungal susceptibility testing. The overall incidence of candidemia was 1.87 cases/1.000 admissions and 0.27 cases/1.000 patient-days. Among the patients, 58.1% were male, and the median age was 40 years old. C. albicans was the most common species (52.2%), followed by C. parapsilosis (22.1%), C. tropicalis (14.8%), and C. glabrata (6.6%). All strains were susceptible to amphotericin B with a MIC90 of 0.5 µg/mL. Overall susceptibility for voriconozole, fluconazole, and caspofungin was > 97% with a MIC90 of 0.064, 4.0 and 1.0 µg/mL, respectively. For itraconazole the susceptibility rate was 81% with a MIC90 of 0.5 µg/mL. Posaconazole also demonstrated good in vitro activity with a MIC90 of 0.25 µg/mL. CONCLUSION: This is the first antifungal susceptibility report in our institution

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the major infectious disease agent among injecting drug users (IDUs), with seroprevalence ranging from 50-90%. In this paper, serological and virological parameters were investigated among 194 IDUs, 94 ex-IDUs and 95 non-IDUs that were sampled by the "snowball" technique in three localities renowned for both intense drug use and trafficking activities in Salvador, Brazil. The majority of the participants were male, but sex and mean age differed significantly between IDUs/ex-IDUs and non-IDUs (p < 0.05). Anti-HCV screening revealed that 35.6%, 29.8% and 5.3% of samples from IDUs, ex-IDUs and non-IDUs, respectively, were seropositive. HCV-RNA detection confirmed that the prevalence of infection was 29.4%, 21.3% and 5.3% for IDUs, ex-IDUs and non-IDUs, respectively. Genotyping analysis among IDUs/ex-IDUs determined that 76.9% were infected with genotype 1, 18.5% with genotype 3 and 4.6% with a mixed genotype; this result differed significantly from non-IDUs, where genotype 3 was the most frequent (60%), followed by genotype 1 (20%) and a mixed genotype (20%). We report a significantly higher prevalence of HCV infection in IDUs/ex-IDUs compared to the control group (p < 0.001). Although the sample size of our study was small, the differences in HCV genotype distribution reported herein for IDUs/ex-IDUs and non-IDUs warrant further investigation.

Com o objetivo de estudar o efeito da calagem, mediante a elevação da saturação por bases, sobre o crescimento e a produção de flavonóides totais de fava-d'anta cultivada em um solo de Cerrado de Minas Gerais, foi conduzido um experimento no Instituto de Ciências Agrárias da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, no período de outubro/2003 a fevereiro/2004. O delineamento experimental utilizado foi inteiramente casualizado, sendo cinco valores de saturação por bases: 10 (saturação natural), 25; 40; 55 e 70%, com seis repetições. Os resultados obtidos mostraram que o aumento da saturação por bases diminuiu o crescimento e não influenciou o teor de flavonóides totais da fava-d'anta.

With the purpose of studying the effect of levels of base saturation upon the growth and total flavonoids production of Dimorphandra mollis cultivated on a soil originally under Savana of Minas Gerais State, Brazil, an experiment was conducted at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, between October/2003 and February/2004. The experiment followed a completely randomized design with five values of base saturation (V%): 10 (natural saturation), 25; 40; 55 and 70%, and six replicates. The increase of base saturation led to a decrease of Dimorphandra mollis growth, and did not influence the total flavonoids plant concentration.