Leptospirosis

Leptospirosis is a cosmopolitan, endemic and relatively common disease. In Brazil, it occurs every month of the year in urban and rural areas, with epidemic outbreaks associated with the rainiest months and natural disasters such as floods. Its recurrence associated with conditions of socio-environmental vulnerability constitutes a health inequity. Between 2007 and 2013, 26,489 cases of the disease were confirmed in Brazil, with 2,479 deaths. Due to the topographical characteristics of the terrain, which offer favourable environments for the occurrence of leptospirosis and frequent rainfall, a study was made of the spatio-temporal distribution of this disease in neighbourhoods in Belém do Pará over the same period, using geoprocessed epidemiological data. This work, the result of a Specialisation in Public Health monograph focused on the area of Epidemiology and Collective Health in the Amazon, using resources from Geography and Information Science applied to health, being able to characterise and map a health inequity, should arouse the interest of students, teachers, researchers and public managers in this field.