Dados do Trabalho

Título

Temporal trends of the hospitalization rate of meningococcal infection in Brazil between 2011 and 2021

Resumo

Introduction: Meningitis is one of the most feared issues in the medical community. The infection by the Neisseria meningitides may be sudden and affect mostly young and children under 5 years old. It is endemic in Brazil, with an incidence of about 1.8 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, with lethality reaching 18-20% of the infected. The clinical features are alarming and the efficiency of protective measures may be monitored through the number of hospitalizations in the national territory, which is usually, underreported. Objectives: analyze the data available on the DataSUS platform about the hospitalizations by meningitis in Brazil and provide epidemiological information about this health issue. Methods: A retrospective, longitudinal, observational and analytic study. The number of meningitis hospitalizations (CID 10-A36) were obtained from the Sistema de Informações sobre Mortalidade (SIM) and the population data from IBGE. That includes the number of hospitalizations from 2011 to 2021, stratified by region. The hospitalisation rate (HR) was calculated per 100.000 inhabitants. The HR trends of each region during the study time were determined by segmented linear regression (joinpoint regression), with the dependent variable the natural logarithmic transformation of the HR and the year for the regression variable. Thus, the Annual Percent Changes (APCs) were obtained with a confidence interval of 95% (CI95%). Results: Hence, HR by meningitis in Brazil from 2011 to 2021 was reduced nationwide and in all regions, evaluated individually through data stratification. In Brazil the results of simple linear regression point to an annual reduction of 17% (APC = -17.0), with a p-value <0.1, with a confidence interval (IC) = -19.7 to -14.3, which shows the assessment was statistically significative. Concerning the rates by region, the North had APC = -6.4 until 2019, in which rates began to reduce by approximately 43% per year (APC = -43) until 2021. The Northeast had APC = -14.8. In the Central-West region, there was a decrease from 2011 to 2021, with an average APC = -14.5 in the HR. The analysis of the Southeast shows an APC= -20.8 for the same period, the highest of all Brazilian regions. Finally, in the South, there was a continuous reduction from 2011 to 2021 APC= -13.9. Conclusion: In summary, the hospitalizations due to meningitis nationwide had a significant reduction. The Southeast region had the highest HR reduction with a decrease of 20.8% per year.