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Inauguramos esta nova seção da Revista Meta: Avaliação, com o registro dos textos base das apresentações feitas por ocasião do Seminário Os 50 anos da Pós-Graduação no Brasil, realizado em 16 de dezembro de 2016, em comemoração à aprovação do Parecer no 977, de 1965, marco conceitual e regulatório da Pós-Graduação brasileira. O Seminário foi promovido pelo Professor Carlos Alberto Serpa de Oliveira, Presidente da Fundação Cesgranrio e da Academia Brasileira de Educação. Ocorreu em 16 de dezembro de 2015, nas dependências do Curso de Mestrado Profissional em Avaliação, no Rio de Janeiro. Contou, na Comissão Organizadora, com a participação das Professoras Maria Judith Sucupira da Costa Lins e Ligia Gomes Elliot, de Nilma Gonçalves Cavalcante, Secretária do Mestrado e egressa do Curso, Valmir Marques de Paiva, Mestrando do Curso, além do apoio da Fundação Cesgranrio. A importância histórica do distinto Relator do Parecer no 977, Professor Newton Buarque Sucupira, seu proeminente papel na Educação do país como pensador, político e ainda articulador da Pós-Graduação, entre outros relevantes cargos desempenhados ao longo de sua vida, e também a sua estreita relação com a criação da Fundação Cesgranrio, vão ser destacados nas apresentações daqueles que tiveram o privilégio de serem seus colegas de trabalho, alunos, orientandos e seguidores.

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that remains a serious public health problem worldwide. In the pediatric population, the knowledge about the factors that lead to the abandonment of TB treatment is limited, especially in regions with a high prevalence of the disease. This study aimed to identify the prevalence and risk factors associated with TB treatment abandonment in children and adolescents. A cross-sectional study was carried out using data obtained from TB notifications from the São Paulo State Tuberculosis Patient Control System, Brazil, for individuals aged between 0 and 18 years, from January 2009 to December 2019. The crude and adjusted prevalence ratios were estimated with a 95% confidence interval, using the Poisson regression model to identify associations between the outcome of treatment abandonment and the sociodemographic, clinical-epidemiological, diagnostic and therapeutic factors of TB cases with complete information. Of the 12,256 cases analyzed, 941 individuals abandoned treatment. The highest prevalence rate of treatment abandonment occurs among Black or brown adolescents, those over 11 years of age and those deprived of their liberty. Other characteristics associated with treatment abandonment include: being a person living with HIV/AIDS, having a history of previous TB treatment, using illicit substances and using a self-administered TB treatment regimen. Knowing the profile of the patient most likely to abandon TB treatment makes it possible to devise more effective strategies focused on adherence to drug treatment.

Likely as in other viral respiratory diseases, SARS-CoV-2 elicit a local immune response, which includes production and releasing of both cytokines and secretory immunoglobulin (SIgA). Therefore, in this study, we investigated the levels of specific-SIgA for SARS-CoV-2 and cytokines in the airways mucosa 37 patients who were suspected of COVID-19. According to the RT-PCR results, the patients were separated into three groups: negative for COVID-19 and other viruses (NEGS, n = 5); negative for COVID-19 but positive for the presence of other viruses (OTHERS, n = 5); and the positive for COVID-19 (COVID-19, n = 27). Higher specific-SIgA for SARS-CoV-2, IFN-β, and IFN-γ were found in the COVID-19 group than in the other groups. Increased IL-12p70 levels were observed in OTHERS group as compared to COVID-19 group. When the COVID-19 group was sub stratified according to the illness severity, significant differences and correlations were found for the same parameters described above comparing severe COVID-19 to the mild COVID-19 group and other non-COVID-19 groups. For the first time, significant differences are shown in the airway's mucosa immune responses in different groups of patients with or without respiratory SARS-CoV-2 infection., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Santos, Soares, Monteiro, Mello, Amaral, Aguiar, Soledade, Sucupira, De Paulis, Andrade, Almeida, Sáfadi, Mau, Brasil, Ramalho, Loures, Vieira, Durigon, de Oliveira and Bachi.)

In March 2020, WHO declared a pandemic state due to SARS-CoV-2 having spread. TaqMan-based real-time RT-qPCR is currently the gold standard for COVID-19 diagnosis. However, it is a high-cost assay, inaccessible for the majority of laboratories around the world, making it difficult to diagnose on a large scale. The objective of this study was to standardize lower cost molecular methods for SARS-CoV-2 identification. E gene primers previously determined for TaqMan assays by Colman et al. (2020) were adapted in SYBR Green assay and RT-PCR conventional. The cross-reactivity test was performed with 17 positive samples for other respiratory viruses, and the sensibility test was performed with 8 dilutions (10 based) of SARS-CoV-2 isolated and 63 SARS-CoV-2-positive samples. The SYBR Green assays and conventional RT-PCR have not shown amplification of the 17 respiratory samples positives for other viruses. The SYBR Green-based assay was able to detect all 8 dilutions of the isolate. The conventional PCR detected until 10 7 dilution, both assays detected the majority of the 63 samples, 98.42% of positivity in SYBR Green, and 93% in conventional PCR. The average Ct variation between SYBR Green and TaqMan was 1.92 and the highest Ct detected by conventional PCR was 35.98. Both of the proposed assays are less sensitive than the current gold standard; however, our data shows a low sensibility variation, suggesting that these methods could be used by laboratories as a lower cost molecular method for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis.

The bloodstream infection surveillance system proposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was prospectively conducted in a pediatric hemodialysis unit. Thirty patients were included; 73% had a catheter for vascular access at enrollment. Vascular access infection rate was 21.1 per 100 patient-months, well above those observed in adult patient surveys. Staphylococcus aureus was most frequently isolated (23%).

Brazil is a large developing country where almost all FDA-licensed antiretrovirals are made available to more than 200,000 individuals under antiretroviral treatment. General primary HIV-1 resistance in Brazil is assumed to be low, but data are scarce, especially in the Northeast region. To evaluate the prevalence of primary HIV-1 antiretroviral resistance in the state of Ceará, Brazil, a cross-sectional prospective study of antiretroviral-naive HIV-1-infected individuals was performed between May 2008 and May 2009. Genomic sequences of reverse transcriptase and protease regions of the pol gene of HIV-1 using PCR products were obtained. Mutations related to resistance to NRTI, NNRTI, and PI were evaluated according to the WHO mutation list for primary resistance surveillance, which excludes common polymorphisms. Seventy-four individuals were evaluated (50% male) with a median age 30 years; 55.4% were men who have sex with men. Median CD4(+) T lymphocyte counts were 418 and 960 cells/mm(3) and the median viral loads were 4.41 and 4.46 log(10) RNA copies/ml for individuals older and younger that 18 years, respectively. Twenty-seven percent of patients were symptomatic. Five patients (6.8%) were recently infected, as detected by the BED test. The mutations 41L, 67N, 215D, 219Q, 101E, and 103N in the RT and 32I, 46I, 54V, 82T, and 90M, in the PR were identified in 9.5% of samples, more frequently in HIV subtype B (85.1%). A significant level of primary HIV resistance was detected in urban Northeast Brazil, a region geographically distant from the more highly populated and wealthier areas of Southeast Brazil, and this emphasizes the need for monitoring resistance in the studied area.