Wine yeast selection in the Iberian Peninsula: Saccharomyces and non-Saccharomyces as drivers of innovation in Spanish and Portuguese wine industries.

Yeast selection for the wine industry in Spain started in 1950 for the understanding of the microbial ecology, and for the selection of optimal strains to improve the performance of alcoholic fermentation and the overall wine quality. This process has been strongly developed over the last 30 years, firstly on Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and, lately, with intense activity on non-Saccharomyces. Several thousand yeast strains have been isolated, identified and tested to select those with better performance and/or specific technological properties. The present review proposes a global survey of this massive ex-situ preservation of eukaryotic microorganisms, a reservoir of biotechnological solutions for the wine sector, overviewing relevant screenings that led to the selection of strains from 12 genera and 22 species of oenological significance. In the first part, the attention goes to the selection programmes related to relevant wine-producing areas (i.e. Douro, Extremadura, Galicia, La Mancha and Uclés, Ribera del Duero, Rioja, Sherry area, and Valencia). In the second part, the focus shifted on specific non-Saccharomyces genera/species selected from different Spanish and Portuguese regions, exploited to enhance particular attributes of the wines. A fil rouge of the dissertation is the design of tailored biotechnological solutions for wines typical of given geographic areas.

Unfolding microbiota and volatile organic compounds of Portuguese Painho de Porco Preto fermented sausages.

In the present study, bacterial and fungal diversity, as well as volatile profiles, of ready-to-eat Portuguese Painho de Porco Preto fermented sausages manufactured by two artisanal producers in the districts of Beja (producer A) and Evora (producer B) were studied. To this end, different selective growth media and a metataxonomic analysis were combined with Headspace Solid-Phase Microextraction-Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC/MS) analysis. The results of the microbiological viable counts revealed active microbial populations of lactic acid bacteria (up to 8 Log cfu g-1), coagulase negative cocci (up to 6 Log cfu g-1), and eumycetes (up to 6 Log cfu g-1). Bacterial populations were characterized by high relative frequencies of Latilactobacillus sakei (up to 72%), together with Weissella and Staphylococcus equorum. The mycobiota was mainly dominated by Debaryomyces hansenii (up to 55% of the relative frequency) and Kurtzmaniella zeylanoides (up to 24% of the relative frequency). Unexpected species as Wickerhamomyces subpelliculosus and Zygosaccharomyces rouxii were also detected. HS-SPME-GC/MS analysis allowed to identify a complex volatile profile, showing 159 volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs belonged to twelve classes, such as aldehydes, ketones and lactones, esters and acetates, alcohols, terpenoids, sulfur compounds, aliphatic hydrocarbons, aromatic hydrocarbons, nitrogen compounds, acids, furans and pyrans, and phenols. The analysis of VOCs composition provided evidence that samples from the two producers (A and B) were different, as confirmed by the Principal Component Analysis. Hence, it is likely that the raw materials used, as well as variations related with the empirical practice of the butchers, strongly influenced the final product. The results obtained in the present study represent a further advancement in the knowledge on the biodiversity and VOCs composition of Portuguese fermented sausages. To better understand the interactions occurring between the autochthonous microorganisms and the meat batter in the Painho de Porco Preto fermented sausage, microbial and VOCs dynamics must be further deepened throughout the production process.

Review of the genus Lesteva Latreille, 1797 (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Omaliinae: Anthophagini) of the Iberian Peninsula.

New taxonomic, diagnostic, and faunistic data for twelve species of the genus Lesteva Latreille, 1797 of the Iberian Peninsula and adjacent territories are provided. Six species are (re-) described and illustrated: L. (s.str.) aterrima Lohse, 1967, L. (s.str.) balearica Lohse, 1967, L. (s.str.) lusitana Lohse, 1955, L. (s.str.) mariei Jarrige, 1963, L. (s.str.) mateui Jarrige, 1954, and L. (s.str.) osellai Zanetti Shavrin, sp.n. (Portugal, Spain). The following new synonymies are established: L. (s.str.) fontinalis Kiesenwetter, 1850 = L. (s.str.) fontinalis gustavi Herman, 2001 syn.n., L. (s.str.) mateui = L. cazorlana Lohse, 1987 syn.n., L. (s.str.) pubescens Mannerheim, 1830 = L. fageli Lohse, 1960 syn.n. A lectotype is designated for L. (s.str.) fontinalis. Images of habitus and aedeagi of L. (s.str.) aterrima, L. (s.str.) balearica, L. (s.str.) cazorlana, L. (s.str.) fontinalis, L. (s.str.) hanseni Lohse, 1953, L. (s.str.) mariei Jarrige, 1963, and L. (s.str.) pubescens are provided. A key to the species of Portugal and Spain, and a distributional map for some species are provided. New records are reported for L. (Lestevina) sicula heeri Fauvel, 1871 from Morocco, L. (s.str.) hanseni Lohse, 1953 and L. (s.str.) pubescens from Portugal, and L. (s.str.) mariei from Spain.

The first probable evidence of leprosy in a male individual (17th-19th century AD) unearthed in Northern Portugal (Travanca, Santa Maria da Feira).

OBJECTIVE: This study describes the first evidence of a probable paleopathological case of leprosy from northern Portugal. MATERIALS: An adult male, skeleton 403, exhumed from the Christian cemetery associated with the church dedicated to Saint Mamede (Travanca, Santa Maria da Feira), dated from the 17th-19th century AD. METHODS: Standard bioarchaeological methods were used for sex and age-at-death determinations, and leprosy-related bone lesions were identified through macroscopic analysis guided by paleopathological diagnostic criteria. RESULTS: The macroscopic observation revealed probable leprosy-related skeletal lesions, namely tenuous rhinomaxillary changes, bilateral proliferative periosteal reactions on the tibiae and fibulae, as well as concentric atrophy, acro-osteolysis and ankyloses of foot bones. CONCLUSIONS: Skeleton 403 represents a probable case of leprosy according to the nature and distribution pattern of bony lesions observed. SIGNIFICANCE: This finding fills an important gap in the history of leprosy in Portugal. Although historical sources show that the majority of leprosaria were located in the northern part of the country, suggesting that leprosy was more prevalent in this area of Portugal in the past, no paleopathological evidence of this disease was reported for this region to date. Furthermore, the inhumation of a leprosy sufferer in a 17th-19th century AD Christian parish cemetery is deeply imbued with social meaning. SUGGESTION FOR FUTURE RESEARCH: The future detailed study of the remaining skeletons unearthed from the cemetery of the Church of São Mamede will hopefully reveal further osteological evidence of leprosy in addition to the application of ancient DNA analysis to confirm the presence of the pathogen of this disease. Also, further documentary research is needed in order to expand appreciation of the epidemiological and social impact of leprosy in the 17th-19th century AD Portugal.

Lepra: doença, isolamento e segregação no contexto colonial em Moçambique / Leprosy: disease, isolation, and segregation in colonial Mozambique

Resumo A partir de documentação produzida entre a primeira metade do século XIX e a primeira metade do século XX, prioritariamente relatórios médicos, o artigo aponta as concepções vigentes na comunidade médica colonial e entre as populações locais sobre a lepra, suas manifestações e seu enfrentamento. Enfoca as tensões quanto à prática de segregação dos leprosos e suas implicações sanitárias e sociais. Para compreender as raízes dos discursos e estratégias no meio médico português e colonial, recupera-se a trajetória das definições de isolamento, segregação, lepra e suas aplicações, ou ausência de referência, na literatura de missionários, cronistas e médicos em Angola e Moçambique a partir da segunda metade do século XVII.

Abstract Drawing on documents produced between the early nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, mainly medical reports, this paper indicates the prevailing conceptions in the colonial medical community and local populations about leprosy, its manifestations, and how to deal with it. It focuses on the tensions concerning the practice of segregating lepers and its social and sanitation implications. To comprehend the roots of the discourses and strategies in the Portuguese and colonial medical environment, the trajectory of the definitions of isolation, segregation, and leprosy are traced, as are their use in or absence from the writings of missionaries, chroniclers, and doctors in Angola and Mozambique as of the second half of the seventeenth century.

Leprosy: disease, isolation, and segregation in colonial Mozambique. / Lepra: doença, isolamento e segregação no contexto colonial em Moçambique.

Drawing on documents produced between the early nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, mainly medical reports, this paper indicates the prevailing conceptions in the colonial medical community and local populations about leprosy, its manifestations, and how to deal with it. It focuses on the tensions concerning the practice of segregating lepers and its social and sanitation implications. To comprehend the roots of the discourses and strategies in the Portuguese and colonial medical environment, the trajectory of the definitions of isolation, segregation, and leprosy are traced, as are their use in or absence from the writings of missionaries, chroniclers, and doctors in Angola and Mozambique as of the second half of the seventeenth century.

Uma cura controversa: a promessa biomédica para a hanseníase em Portugal e no Brasil / A controversial cure: the biomedical promise for hanseniasis in Portugal and Brazil

Este artigo procura responder à pergunta, nascida na empiria do trabalho de campo: por que algumas pessoas portadoras de hanseníase e tratadas com a poliquimioterapia (PQT) se sentem curadas e outras não? Com base numa etnografia multissituada nas escalas transnacional (programa global para a hanseníase da Organização Mundial da Saúde), nacional (paisagens morais e paradigmas biopolíticos para a hanseníase em Portugal e Brasil) e local (prática clínica em contexto hospitalar e experiência incorporada das pessoas portadoras nos dois países), analisa como a incerteza documentada na clínica da hanseníase e a clivagem experienciada por algumas pessoas, entre a cura bacteriológica e o sentimento de se sentir sanado, abre uma controvérsia em torno dos principais postulados que sustentam o emprego da PQT como uma entidade autônoma do contexto e difratam a fronteira entre o normal e o patológico em que se baseia o enquadramento contemporâneo da hanseníase e as respostas institucionais à mesma. Finalmente, conclui pela necessidade de incluir uma escolha incorporada na atual política ontológica para a hanseníase que amplie a própria nosologia e refunde um novo paradigma de cuidado, de tipo participativo.

This paper aims to answer the following question that arouse during fieldwork: why some people with hanseniasis and treated with multidrug therapy (MDT) feel healed and others don't? From a multi-sited ethnography in the transnational (global program for hanseniasis from the World Health Organization), national (Portuguese and Brazilian moral landscapes and biopolitical paradigms), local (clinical practice and incorporated experience of people with hanseniasis in both countries) scales, it examines how the uncertainty documented in the clinic and the gap experienced by some people between the bacteriological cure and the feeling of being healed, opens for a controversy on the main postulates that sustain the use of MDT as an autonomous entity and diffract the contemporaneous framing of hanseniasis and the institutional responses to it. Finally, it concludes on the need for including an incorporated choice that might widen hanseniasis' ontological politics and rebuild a new participatory paradigm of care.

Leprosy as a multilayered biosocial phenomenon: The comparison of institutional responses and illness narratives of an endemic disease in Brazil and an imported disease in Portugal.

This paper questions the relation between human health and society from the case study of leprosy. To discuss the cultural and social mediator factors of both the experience of leprosy and outcomes of medical practices, it examines the biomedical twist in the dialectic between citizenship and public good that aimed to turn leprosy into a disease like any other, with the advent of multidrug therapy during the 1980s. Such analysis is based on a multisited ethnography, developed between 2008 and 2013 in two divergent contexts from the global South and North: Brazil, which remains the country in the world with the highest relative cases of leprosy, and Portugal, in which leprosy has become an imported disease. The main results of this research point to the limits of a pharmaceuticalized governmentality of leprosy and to heterogeneous medicalization's processes, which evince the determinacy of historical intersections between the State and civil society, as well as the corollaries of the former in medical care. This paper concludes with an analysis of the partition between biomedical cure and the healing of leprosy, which unveils the intermediation of institutional and extrainstitutional factors in access to health and in the cure of leprosy. It is finally argued that such intermediation requires a public health approach that might resocialize leprosy through a paradigmatic shift toward intersectoral and participatory operational strategies.

Leprosy as a multilayered biosocial phenomenon: the comparison of institutional responses and illness naratives of an endemic disease in Brazil and an imported disease in Portugal

This paper questions the relation between human health and society from the case study of leprosy. To discuss the cultural and social mediator factors of both the experience of leprosy and outcomes of medical practices, it examines the biomedical twist in the dialectic between citizenship and public good that aimed to turn leprosy into a disease like any other, with the advent of multidrug therapy during the 1980s. Such analysis is based on a multisited ethnography, developed between 2008 and 2013 in two divergent contexts from the global South and North: Brazil, which remains the country in the world with the highest relative cases of leprosy, and Portugal, in which leprosy has become an imported disease. The main results of this research point to the limits of a pharmaceuticalized governmentality of leprosy and to heterogeneous medicalization's processes, which evince the determinacy of historical intersections between the State and civil society, as well as the corollaries of the former in medical care. This paper concludes with an analysis of the partition between biomedical cure and the healing of leprosy, which unveils the intermediation of institutional and extrainstitutional factors in access to health and in the cure of leprosy. It is finally argued that such intermediation requires a public health approach that might resocialize leprosy through a paradigmatic shift toward intersectoral and participatory operational strategies.

Em diferentes escalas: a arquitetura do Hospital-Colonia Rovisco Pais sob o olhar do medico Fernando Bissaya Barreto / On different scales: the architecture of Hospital-Colonia Rovisco Pais from the perspective of doctor Fernando Bissaya Barreto

Em 1938, o médico português Fernando Bissaya Barreto promoveu a construção de um 'internato de leprosos' no centro de Portugal, afastado dos grandes centros populacionais, mas de fácil acesso a todo o país. Inaugurado em 1947, o Hospital-Colônia Rovisco Pais segue o modelo de um hospital-asilo-colônia, sendo simetricamente segmentado por pavilhões iguais em número e características para os dois sexos. Seguindo uma lógica disciplinar e não de exclusão, o plano urbanístico, o desenho dos edifícios e o próprio mobiliário e decoração são configurados, sob a influência direta de Bissaya Barreto, como instrumentos de intervenção sobre o corpo físico e moral dos doentes de Hansen, mas também, e em outra escala, de controle e modificação da sociedade portuguesa no seu conjunto.

In 1938, Portuguese physician Fernando Bissaya Barreto spearheaded the creation of a 'nursing home for lepers' in the center of Portugal, away from big towns and cities, but still accessible from any part of the country. Opened in 1947, Hospital-Colônia Rovisco Pais followed the model of a colony/hospital/hospice, and was divided symmetrically into buildings of equal features and numbers for both sexes. According to a disciplinary, non-exclusionary rationale, the urban design, building design and furniture and fittings were conceived, under the direct influence of Bissaya Barreto, as instruments for intervention in the physical and moral bodies of the patients, and also, on a different scale, for the control and modification of Portuguese society as a whole.

An international multicenter study on quality of life and family quality of life in children with atopic dermatitis.

BACKGROUND: Atopic dermatitis (AD) has severe impact on the quality of life (QoL) of children suffering from the disease and their families. The infant's dermatitis quality of life index (IDQoL) and the dermatitis family impact questionnaire (DFI) were designed to study this impact. AIMS: To compare the impact of AD on children and their families in different countries. METHODS: 419 children with AD from six countries representing three continents under the age of 4 years were included into the study. English, Ukrainian, Czech, Portuguese, and Korean versions of the IDQoL and the DFI and Dutch version of the IDQoL questionnaires were used. RESULTS: The highest scored items for the IDQoL and the DFI were rather similar. The IDQoL and the DFI results were well correlated with parental assessment of disease severity and between each other in all countries. Some differences mostly in the IDQoL assessment were found. CONCLUSION: Despite some reported peculiarities, parents in different counties assessed QoL and family QoL of their AD children in a similar way. The IDQoL and the DFI may be reliable initial measures for international studies. International study on the influence of the same treatment methods on the IDQoL and the DFI assessments is important.

[The Hospital-Colónia Rovisco Pais: the last Portuguese leprosarium and the contingent universes of experience and memory]. / O Hospital-Colónia Rovisco Pais: a última leprosaria portuguesa e os universos contingentes da experiência e da memória.

The Hospital-Colónia Rovisco Pais was inaugurated in Portugal in the 1940s for the treatment, study and prophylaxis of leprosy based on the compulsive internment model, whose configuration reflects the total institution concept proposed by Goffman. It concerns an important hygiene project of the Estado Novo. Its educative paradigm combined elements inspired in European social medicine and the ideology of the paternalistic Portuguese dictatorial regime. The Hospital Colony here will be thought of as a disciplinary dispositive, developing considerations regarding the confrontation between disciplinary power and experience. Memory emerges as a contingent instrument to access the practices and interstitial meanings woven into the Hospital Colony's daily life, seeking to find out about the experience of its former patients as political subjects.

O Hospital-Colónia Rovisco Pais: a última leprosaria portuguesa e os universos contingentes da experiência e da memória / The Hospital-Colónia Rovisco Pais: the last Portuguese leprosarium and the contingent universes of experience and memory

O Hospital-Colónia Rovisco Pais foi inaugurado em Portugal na década de 1940, com vistas ao tratamento, estudo e profilaxia da lepra, de acordo com modelo de internamento compulsivo, cuja configuração remete ao conceito de instituição total proposto por Goffman. Trata-se de um importante projeto higienista do Estado Novo. O seu paradigma educativo combinava elementos inspirados na medicina social europeia e na ideologia do regime ditatorial paternalista português. O Hospital-Colónia será aqui ponderado como dispositivo disciplinar, desenvolvendo-se reflexão acerca do confronto entre o poder disciplinar e a experiência. A memória emerge como instrumento contingente para o acesso às práticas e aos significados intersticiais tecidos no quotidiano do Hospital-Colónia, buscando-se auscultar a experiência de seus ex-doentes como sujeitos políticos.

The Hospital-Colónia Rovisco Pais was inaugurated in Portugal in the 1940s for the treatment, study and prophylaxis of leprosy based on the compulsive internment model, whose configuration reflects the total institution concept proposed by Goffman. It concerns an important hygiene project of the Estado Novo. Its educative paradigm combined elements inspired in European social medicine and the ideology of the paternalistic Portuguese dictatorial regime. The Hospital Colony here will be thought of as a disciplinary dispositive, developing considerations regarding the confrontation between disciplinary power and experience. Memory emerges as a contingent instrument to access the practices and interstitial meanings woven into the Hospital Colony's daily life, seeking to find out about the experience of its former patients as political subjects.

Hansen's disease in Portugal: multibacillary patients treated between 1988 and 2003.

BACKGROUND: There is an estimate low incidence of patients with Hansen's disease in Portugal. Following the 1982 World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, extended multidrug therapy (MDT) was started for multibacillary (MB) patients. Patients were then treated with rifampicine (RFP), clofazimine (CLF) and dapsone (DDS) for a minimum of 2 years or until smear negativity. The aim of this study was to evaluate MDT efficacy in our patient population. METHODS: Retrospective and descriptive study of 102 MB patients who underwent MDT from 1988 to 2003. RESULTS: The number of new MB patients has gradually increased since 1960, the first year of our consultation, due mostly to a rise in imported cases. Overall, 34% of the subjects were immigrants, mainly from former Portuguese Colonies. Forty-six patients had previously received monotherapy with DDS (mean duration of this treatment, 22 years). Relapse after MDT occurred in 9 cases (8.8%), but importantly, all relapsed cases were smear negative at least on one occasion after the end of treatment, suggesting these were true relapses rather than treatment failures. CONCLUSIONS: Despite the 2-year WHO-MDT regimen, patients with MB disease clearly face the possibility of relapse. We propose that any reduction in the duration of therapy such as the recently proposed 6-month standard MDT is likely to increase the relapse rate even further. Important issues for future consideration are the needs to identify those at risk of relapse and in need of alternative antimicrobial treatment with a prolonged clinical follow-up.

Dynamics of yeast populations recovered from decaying leaves in a nonpolluted stream: a 2-year study on the effects of leaf litter type and decomposition time.

Here we report on the results of a survey of the yeast populations occurring on submerged leaves (alder, eucalyptus and oak) in a natural mountain stream, during different phases of their decomposition and through two consecutive years. Leaf litter mass loss, total yeast counts, Shannon-Weiner index (H'), yeast community structure and physiologic abilities were analyzed to evaluate the dynamics of yeast communities during decay. Seventy-two yeast taxa were recorded, and in all litter types, species of basidiomycetous affinity predominated over ascomycetous ones. Discriminant analysis of presence/absence data (yeast species) showed significant differences both among substrate types (P<0.0026) and with decomposition time (P<0.0001). Carbon and nitrogen source utilization by yeast strains also varied with the substrate (P<0.0001) and decomposition time (P<0.0001). Further conclusions were that: (1) all litter types have in common ubiquitous yeast species, such as Cryptococcus albidus, Debaryomyces hansenii and Rhodotorula glutinis, among the common 20 yeast species; (2) only a few species were dominant, and most species were rare, being recorded once or twice throughout decomposition; and (3) the order of yeast appearance, and their substrate assimilation patterns, strongly suggest a succession phenomenon. Finally, explanations for the distribution patterns and variations in yeast communities are discussed.

Application of temperature gradient gel electrophoresis to the study of yeast diversity in the estuary of the Tagus river, Portugal.

Temperature gradient gel electrophoresis (TGGE) was employed for the assessment of yeast diversity in the estuary of the Tagus river (Portugal). The molecular detection of yeasts was carried out directly from water samples and, in parallel, a cultivation approach by means of an enrichment step was employed. A nested PCR was employed to obtain a fungal amplicon containing the D2 domain of the 26S rRNA gene. For identification the TGGE bands were extracted, re-amplified, and sequenced. Fourteen fungal taxa were detected and all except one were yeasts. Most yeast sequences corresponded to members of the Ascomycota and only three belonged to the Basidiomycota. Five yeasts (four ascomycetes and one basidiomycete) could not be identified to the species level due to the uniqueness of their sequences. The number of species detected after enrichment was higher than the number of taxa found using the direct detection method. This suggests that some yeast populations are present in densities that are below the detection threshold of the method. With respect to the analysis of the yeast community structure, our results indicate that the dominant populations belong to Debaryomyces hansenii, Rhodotorula mucilaginosa, Cryptococcus longus, and to an uncultured basidiomycetous yeast phylogenetically close to Cr. longus. The combined analysis of direct detection and cultivation approaches indicates a similar community structure at the two sampled sites since nine species were present at both localities.

Assessment of yeast diversity in a marine environment in the south of Portugal by microsatellite-primed PCR.

The occurrence and diversity of yeasts in seawater was investigated in a study site located 20 Km off Faro, Portugal, above the Alvares Cabral Trench. A total of 43 water samples from different layers (above the permanent thermocline, under the thermocline and near the bottom) and directly from the surface, originated 234 isolates. All the isolates were identified using a molecular approach that included, in a first stage, MSP-PCR fingerprinting. A total of 31 MSP-PCR classes were formed, 8 for the pigmented yeasts and 23 for the non-pigmented yeasts. The pink coloured isolates were identified by direct comparison of the new fingerprints with those obtained for representative strains of the various species. For identification of the non-pigmented yeasts, a representative isolate of each MSP-PCR class was selected for sequence analysis and compared with reference sequences. The five most abundant yeast species were Sakaguchia dacryoidea, Pseudozyma aphidis, Rhodosporidium babjevae, R. diobovatum and Debaryomyces hansenii. The distribution of isolates and species in the major taxonomic groups indicated that the number of basidiomycetous yeasts and their diversity are prevalent in relation to their ascomycetous counterpart. Diversity indices were determined and superficial water and water near the bottom had the highest diversity. The sampling effort effectiveness was estimated, and found to correspond to approximately 60% of the species present. MSP-PCR identification proved suitable for pigmented basidiomycetous yeasts and, when used in conjunction with sequence analysis, was effective for the characterization of non-pigmented populations. Our results indicate that the MSP-PCR fingerprinting method is appropriate for the characterization of large groups of isolates due to its simplicity and good reproducibility.

Characterisation of yeast flora isolated from an artisanal Portuguese ewes' cheese.

The evolution of the yeast flora was studied for an artisanal semi-hard ewes' cheese made from raw milk. Mean log10 yeast counts per gram of cheese body ranged from 2.7 to 6.4, with the higher counts observed after a ripening period of 30 days. The yeast population decreased thereafter and, at the end of curing process, reached values similar to those of the beginning. A total of 344 yeasts strains were randomly isolated from the curd and cheese body during the 60 days long ripening period. Esterase activity was common to almost all isolates (98%) while proteolysis was observed in 12% of the total yeast population. The proportion of strains with positive glucose fermentation increased from 21% in the curd to 75% at the end of the ripening period. A total of 150 isolates representative of the physiological characteristics tested were examined with the API ID 32C system showing different degrees of quality of identification. Only 15% of the strains (23 isolates) were excellently identified being assigned to the species Candida zeylanoides. The most frequent species appeared to be Debaryomyces hansenii (anamorph Candida famata) and Candida intermedia. These two species amounted to 9% of the yeasts in the curd increasing to 86% at the end of the ripening period.

Leprosy in Portugal 1946-80: epidemiologic patterns observed during declining incidence rates.

Compulsory notification of leprosy in Portugal formed the basis for the establishment of a national patient registry used in an epidemiological study. Highest incidence rates were observed in the coastal counties in the middle of Portugal and particularly in the municipalities with a high annual rainfall. Peak incidence rates in males was observed at the age of 25-29 years against 50-59 in females. A continuous and increasing decline in incidence rates was observed throughout the observation period, 1946-80. Towards the end of the period the slopes of the incidence curves seemed to be identical with those observed in other countries where leprosy has previously been eradicated. This is consistent with the notion that towards the end of an endemic situation no new transmission of the disease occurs, and the incidence curve takes the shape of the right part of the distribution of incubation periods which apparently is uniform in leprosy, irrespective of time and place. The pattern observed in other areas during declining incidence rates, of an increase in age at onset by year of onset together with a lack of increase in age at onset by year of birth was confirmed by the Portuguese data, also consistent with a break in the transmission of the disease a long time before the final termination of the endemic situation.