Epidemiologic Surveillance Support System (in Portuguese, Sistema de Apoio Unificado para a Detecção e Acompanhamento em Vigilância Epidemiológica - SAUDAVEL).

The infectious diseases are back to the main stage in epidemiological scenario in Brazil, with dengue fever epidemics, leptospirosis outbreaks, the recurrence of tuberculosis, among others. In Rio de Janeiro, for instance, the mean incidence rate of dengue varies from 27/100.000 inhabitants in non epidemic years to 470 cases/100.000hab during epidemics: 17 times greater [SMS-RJ, 2002]. Besides, the so called (re)emerging diseases and its fast spread are placing new challenges for the health systems, particularly in relation to epidemiological surveillance techniques. The Nile Fever is a good example, with its 3500 human cases and 180 deaths in 2002, in 42 American states. This fever, transmitted by mosquitoes, has wild birds for reservoir, including species with seasonal migratory habits to Brazil [USA Government, 2002].

On the other hand, there is a synergism between social processes and the ecosystems where they happen, related to a state of widespread increase in the social vulnerability and persistence of inadequate conditions of life. As a result, endemic diseases in urban areas, with high population density, where before they were rare, proliferate and disseminate. Leptospirosis is a paradigmatic example to illustrate this problem. The disease has two different incidence profiles: in endemic situation, the population groups with more cases are the most deprived ones, because the transmission follows the contact with rat urine, in extremely precarious environment conditions. Following floods caused by storms, the risk profile changes and the epidemics strikes better-off people [Barcellos and Sabroza, 2001].

The complexities of Brazilian urban reality point new targets to the control of transmissible diseases such as dengue fever, filariasis, visceral leishmaniasis, all occurring in large Brazilian cities, usually in the same population groups, transmitted by vectors, with important animal reservoirs, each with its own different characteristics. Added to this scene is the newest epidemic of the modernity: the violence, that can be characterized as an urban endemic disease, with important interaction with all others, impacting on the same deprived population [OPS, 1994]. The main aspects to deal with these problems are the ability to timely detect changes in counts of cases characterizing epidemic outbreaks, and to model and identify risk and protection factors in endemic and epidemic moments.

In order to increase the competence of the health sector in the control of transmissible diseases it is necessary to develop new tools for epidemiological surveillance, integrating environmental aspects, risk factor detection, and automatic and semiautomatic methods, allowing outbreak detection and follow-up in space and time. The main aim of this project is to produce critical technological tools to make possible anticipate and amplify preventive interventions, optimizing activities and resources in health promotion.

Financial Support: