The Northeast and Southeast regions of Pará concentrate a high incidence of
cases of American cutaneous leishmaniasis (ACL). It is a disease characterized
as one of the main neglected tropical diseases and constitutes a challenge for
public health, requiring a great operational, technical and political effort, given the
environmental nature involved in the epidemiology of the disease. In this
scenario, understanding the secular behavior of the disease, considering regional
peculiarities, can be of great value for planning future actions. This study aimed
to analyze the spatio-temporal distribution of ATL in 12 municipalities that are part
of a disease production circuit in the Southeast and Northeast mesoregions of
the state of Pará. For this purpose, a descriptive study of the ecological type, of
a quantitative nature, was carried out through a retrospective investigation of
clinical, spatial and epidemiological data from ACL, based on data collected from
the Notifiable Diseases Information System in 2006. to 2020. In total, 5,097 cases
of the disease were reported during the study period. The incidence fluctuated
over the period analyzed, ranging from 0.64/10,000 inhabitants in 2006 to
11.5/10,000 inhabitants in 2007, showing a stationary trend. Sociodemographic
data revealed that the disease primarily affects men (83.6%) in their most
productive phase (75.7%) and that the disease is related to fieldwork activities
(62.7%). Most cases were autochthonous, but cases were reported from two
countries in Latin America and two in Africa. The highest incidences were
observed in the southeast of Pará and in the municipalities of the northeast of
Pará that border Paragominas. The distribution of cases may be related to mining
activities that led to deforestation and population migrations from other
municipalities and states, especially the state of Maranhão, in search of jobs,
generating a population jump. The importance of understanding the ATL
transmission process at the local level is a fundamental issue to support
surveillance and environmental control actions, and to contribute to the
knowledge of the dynamics and circulation of the parasite between the foci of the
same high transmission region.
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