Association of radioactivity of the monazite sands of the beaches of the Guarapari city with the presence of parasites of zoonotic potential

Abstract

The city of Guarapari, known as “Healthy City”, has as its main tourist attraction radioactive sands known as monazite sands. There are many studies aimed at quantifying radiation, but little is known about an influence of radiation levels on the life cycle of parasites with zoonotic potential, since many owners take their animals to beaches facilitating a maintenance of their cycle. The objective of the present work was to evaluate the association of the sand radiation of the beaches of the municipality of Guarapari and the presence of eggs and larvae of zoonotic potential parasites. To determine the influence of the radiation on the parasites, sand and faeces samples were collected from the beaches of Praia do Morro, Areia Preta, Castanheiras, Setiba and Santa Mônica, and how to analyze, use the simple centrifugal-flotation technique. The beaches of the present study were classified as low, medium and high radioactivity according to the dose limits that a human being can receive. The samples of sand and faeces were grouped according to a classification of the beaches where they were collected as samples. After obtaining the result, a Chi-square statistical test was performed at a significance level of 95% to evaluate an association between radiation classes and parasite presence. In general, monazitic sands have an influence on the maintenance of the cycle of zoonotic parasites found in beach sand, their correlation being inversely proportional.

Keywords

• environmental contamination, geohelminths, radioactive sands