Alternative approaches for cutaneous leishmaniasis surveillance in indigenous areas - case study among the Amapa Wajapi people

This paper aims to present the limitations of the surveillance system for cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) overseen by the Ministry of Health in Brazil in indigenous areas, based on the accounts of technical experts and collaborators who worked on the surveillance of the disease among the Wajapi indigenous people between 2012 and 2015. The study compares the standard approaches recommended by the Ministry of Health with alternative approaches in three main areas: case detection and diagnosis, treatment, and epidemiological analysis. In the latter area, methods that relate to risk analysis, entomology and the study of vertebrate hosts were compared. The comparison showed that approaches based on qualitative methods and knowledge about cultural patterns and specificities of the indigenous group increased the acceptability of the health service. Integrative approaches such as participatory community workshops involving community members acting as reporting agents working within the health service proved to be important alternatives for improving the sensitivity and representativeness of the CL monitoring system in indigenous areas. It is expected that the approaches compared in this study can form the basis for improvement in health surveillance systems, particularly for vector-borne diseases in indigenous areas.