: Dengue is the most common arboviral disease in the world. Traditionally, it has affected more adults, but the incidence in children has increased in recent years. Colombia is no stranger to this change; therefore, we aimed to find the differences in signs, symptoms, and clinical, hematological, and hemogram characteristics between children under 12 years old and individuals aged 12 years and older in an endemic region of Colombia in 2020–2022. The analyses were conducted with baseline data, corresponding to a cross-sectional design. Multiple correspondence analysis was used for general, dermatological, and clinical symptom profiles. Discriminant analysis was used for laboratory profiles. Multiple correspondence analysis was applied to nominal categorical data, employing Euclidean distances to analyze age groups. Discriminant analysis was applied to a training sample and validated on a test sample. The overall agreement of the model’s discrimination, sensitivity, specificity, and fit indicators was calculated. The results indicated that individuals under 12 years exhibited distinct dermatological and clinical features, including rash, pruritus, hypotension, lymphocyte count, and platelet count, compared with those aged 12 years and older. In contrast, those 12 years and older were profiled for general and clinical symptoms such as pain (back pain, retro-orbital pain, headache), dizziness, chills, hematuria, tachypnea, and elevated/high hematocrit, hemoglobin, and basophil values. These findings are crucial to understanding the high incidence in children; they also facilitate rapid understanding of the disease in clinical care settings and differentiate it from other febrile outbreaks. This will affect disease control, particularly in severe cases, and reduce mortality.

Congenital malaria has been considered a rare event; however, recent reports have shown frequencies ranging from 3% to 54.2% among newborns of mothers who had suffered malaria during pregnancy. There are only a few references concerning the epidemiological impact of this entity in Latin-America and Colombia.

Leptospirosis represents a public health problem in Colombia. However, the underreporting of the disease is an unfortunate reality, with a clear trend towards a decrease in cases since 2019, when the guidelines for its confirmatory diagnosis changed with the requirement of two paired samples. The purpose of this review is to highlight the importance of leptospirosis. While the access to rapid diagnosis is available at practically all levels of care for dengue and malaria, leptospirosis—a doubly neglected disease—deserves recognition as a serious public health problem in Colombia. In this manner, it is proposed that molecular tests are a viable diagnostic alternative that can improve the targeted treatment of the patient and the timeliness of data and case reporting to SIVIGILA, and reduce the underreporting of the disease. Taking advantage of the strengthened technological infrastructure derived from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic for molecular diagnosis in Colombia, with a network of 227 laboratories distributed throughout the national territory, with an installed capacity for PCR testing, it is proposed that molecular diagnosis can be used as an alternative for early diagnosis. This would allow case confirmation through the public health network in Colombia, and, together with the microagglutination (MAT) technique, the epidemiological surveillance of this disease in this country would be strengthened.

Cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) is a high-morbidity, vector-borne disease endemic to Colombia. Unlike conventional systemic antileishmanial therapy, intralesional meglumine antimoniate administration has fewer adverse effects and can be as effective and safe. We describe 12 patients treated with intralesional meglumine antimoniate: seven with primary and five with recurrent lesions. The majority (11/12) met all cure criteria after 1-7 sessions of meglumine antimoniate administration (1-5 mL). Adverse effects comprised mainly of local pain and edema. Intralesional meglumine antimoniate administration could be an excellent alternative treatment for uncomplicated CL; however, controlled clinical trials are needed to test the efficacy and safety thereof.

One of the main challenges in the clinical management of dengue is the early identification of cases that could progress to severe forms of the disease. A biomarker that may enable this identification is the presence of genetic polymorphisms in genes associated with immune responses. The objective of this study was to perform a systematic review of the Latin American literature on these genes. An electronic literature search was carried out in PubMed, Scopus, Lilacs, and the Virtual Health Library, and reference lists of systematic reviews in the area. Case-control studies conducted in Latin American countries examining at least one form of genetic polymorphism related to immune responses against severe dengue were included. In total, 424 articles were identified and 26 were included in this systematic review. Of the 26 selected articles, 16 reported polymorphisms associated with the risk of developing severe dengue (Risk); Similarly, 16 articles reported polymorphisms associated with a decreased risk of severe dengue (Protective). The final analysis revealed that multiple polymorphisms in immune system genes were early markers of the progression of dengue in Latin Americans and found that polymorphisms of the TNF-alpha gene may have a critical role in dengue pathogenesis.

Introducción. La malaria representa un problema de salud pública en la región de Urabá, donde se registran tasas superiores a las del departamento de Antioquia; la carga de malaria por Plasmodium vivax es de 78,7 % y poco se ha explorado su perfil en la región.Objetivos. Con el presente estudio se pretende conocer las características clínicas y de laboratorio de los pacientes hospitalizados por malaria por P. vivax en Apartadó.Materiales y métodos. Se revisaron las historias clínicas de pacientes con malaria por P. vivax que requirieron manejo hospitalario en el Hospital “Antonio Roldán Betancur”, Empresa Social del Estado, durante los años 2004-2007.Resultados. Se hospitalizaron 359 pacientes con malaria por P. vivax, de los cuales, el 23,1 % (83/359 casos) se complicó por anemia grave (51,8 %, 43/83), por trombocitopenia grave (15,6 %, 13/83) y por hiperbilirrubinemia (7,2 %, 6/83); algunos pacientes satisfacían varios criterios simultáneamente, incluyendo un caso de síndrome de dificultad respiratoria aguda. Los datos de laboratorio más significativos mostraron disminución de los niveles de hemoglobina, hematocrito y plaquetas, con aumento en los niveles de transaminasas y bilirrubinas. Sólo el 4,82 % (4/83) de los pacientes con malaria complicada, recibió tratamiento con quinina intravenosa, ninguno falleció.Conclusiones. Se destaca en este trabajo la frecuencia importante de malaria complicada por P. vivax, particularmente en los menores de cinco años, en la región de Urabá, y la necesidad de fortalecer el conocimiento de la guía para la atención clínica integral del paciente con malaria, entre el personal de salud, para hacer un diagnóstico clínico correcto y ofrecer el tratamiento apropiado.