Salus Platform: A Digital Health Solution Tool for Managing Syphilis Cases in Brazil-A Comparative Analysis.

(1) Introduction: Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) that constitutes a serious public health problem in Brazil and worldwide; (2) Methods: This was a descriptive and exploratory study that sought to analyze and compare the characteristics of Brazilian health systems with a new platform (Salus) developed by the Laboratory of Technological Innovation in Health in the scope of notification and management of disease data, including syphilis. In addition, this analysis aimed to assess whether Salus fully meets the necessary data management fields and can be indicated as a tool to improve health management in the context of syphilis in Brazil. (3) Results: In this study, the Salus functionalities were demonstrated and compared with the current Brazilian systems by discovering the existing gaps in the evaluated systems. The gaps found may explain the delay in meeting demands, the difficulty of making routine therapeutic follow-ups, in addition to interference with the vital purpose of follow-up in the epidemiological surveillance of diseases. As a result, Salus demonstrates functionalities that surpass all others and meet case management demands in a superior way to the systems currently used in the country. (4) Conclusions: The Brazilian health information systems related to the response to syphilis do not fulfill the purpose for which they were developed. Instead, they contribute to the fragmentation of health data and information, delays in diagnosis, incomplete case management, and loss of data due to inconsistencies and inadequate reporting. In addition, they are systems without interconnection, which do not articulate epidemiological surveillance actions with primary health care. All these factors may be obscuring accurate data on syphilis in Brazil, resulting in high and unnecessary public spending and late care for users of the Unified Health System (SUS).

Effectiveness of COVID-19 Vaccination on Reduction of Hospitalizations and Deaths in Elderly Patients in Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, vaccination has been the core strategy to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. This paper analyzes the impact of COVID-19 vaccination on hospitalizations and deaths in the state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. We analyzed data from 23,516 hospitalized COVID-19 patients diagnosed between April 2020 and August 2021. We excluded the data from patients hospitalized through direct occupancy, unknown outcomes, and unconfirmed COVID-19 cases, resulting in data from 12,635 patients cross-referenced with the immunization status during hospitalization. Our results indicated that administering at least one dose of the immunizers was sufficient to significantly reduce the occurrence of moderate and severe COVID-19 cases among patients under 59 years. Considering the partially or fully immunized patients, the mean age is similar between the analyzed groups, despite the occurrence of comorbidities and higher than that observed among not immunized patients. Thus, immunized patients present lower Unified Score for Prioritization (USP) levels when diagnosed with COVID-19. Our data suggest that COVID-19 vaccination significantly reduced the hospitalization and death of elderly patients (60+ years) after administration of at least one dose. Comorbidities do not change the mean age of moderate/severe COVID-19 cases and the days required for the hospitalization of these patients.