This study evaluated mortality due to infectious and parasitic diseases in the city of Teresina in the last 30 years of the 20th century. Infectious and parasitic disease mortality rates decreased in terms of potential years of life lost and were surpassed by mortality due to cardiocirculatory/respiratory diseases and cancer and external causes, between 1980 and 1990. In 2000, infectious/parasitic disorders affected mostly individuals with fifty years of age and older, especially men. The most frequent causes of death were: septicemia, dysentery, tuberculosis, AIDS, and leishmaniosis, and the role of pneumonia should be emphasized among the infectious diseases included in other disease classification groups. During the research, three emerging infectious diseases were observed in Teresina: AIDS, dengue and cholera, whereas other diseases, such as tuberculosis and leishmaniosis recovered their relevance in terms of morbidity-mortality. In Teresina, the impact of emerging diseases and the burden of persevering diseases, along with the socio-economic, demographic and environmental transformations that the city has gone through in the past three decades, have made infectious and parasitic disorders become a problem to be solved in the 21st century.
Mortality; Infectious parasitic diseases; Teresina
