[Hydatidosis control in the province of Río Negro, Argentina: development of primary care programs]

Hydatidosis is a serious Public Health problem in the Province of Río Negro, Argentina. This situation has promoted the implementation of a control programme based on the canine systematic deparasitation with Praziquantel, health education, work control and care of persons. The accumulated experience of 15 years works, carried out to develop the last work--line mentioned above, is presented in this study. The activities includes the registry of human cases, the early identification of asymptomatic carries, the infected persons derivation to the hospital system in order to allow their appropriate treatment, the longitudinal follow up of the operated cases and the epidemiologic surveillance of the human hydatidosis situation. A network of laboratories was organized, as a support to satisfy the hospital demand, under the coordination of a central laboratory of reference and serologic surveys, among the groups at risk, were also carried out. The information registered indicates that a total of 60,078 serologic tests were carried out in the whole Province: out of them, 22,899 corresponded to hospital demand (DD5) and 37,179 to serologic surveys (originally latex, then DD5, and now Elisa). 65% of the cases, diagnosed by official register, is derived from rural areas to complexity hospitals, to be put under surgical treatment, and, out of these operated persons, only 3.9% is derived from the appearance of clinical symptomatology. A sustained reduction in the average days of stay, in lethality and in the rate of serologic prevalence in school children from 7 to 13 years of age, are achieved.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)