[Incidence of infective diseases at an internal medicine service]

In the clinical records between 1980-1989, there are 3,386 diagnosis of diseases, 34 percent of them were infections, the first great cause of diseases in ten years; the second cause was cardiovascular 16.3%. Infectious disease were localized in urinary tract 19%, Typhoid Fever 15%, pneumonia 11%, tuberculosis 8.5%, cellulitis 8.5%, Viral Hepatitis 8%, Brucellosis 5%, gastrointestinal Tract infections 5% and others 20%. It is necessary improve the epidemiological criteria in the practice of internal medicine, because the elevated numbers of infectious diseases that we are seeing in the Internal Medicina Section.