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This case study analyses the challenges to providing specialized care in Brazilian remote rural municipalities (RRM). Interviews were conducted with managers from two Brazilian states (Piauí and Bahia). We identified that the distance between municipalities is a limiting factor for access and that significant care gaps contribute to different organizational arrangements for providing and accessing specialized care. Physicians in all the RRMs offer specialized care by direct disbursement to users or sale of procedures to managers periodically, compromising municipal and household budgets. Health regions do not meet the demand for specialized care and exacerbate the need for extensive travel. RRM managers face additional challenges for the provision of specialized care regarding the financing, implementation of cooperative arrangements, and the provision of care articulated in networks to achieve comprehensive care, seeking solutions to the locoregional specificities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rare ophichthid eel Asarcenchelys longimanus is reported for the first time from Bahia State, north-eastern Brazil. To date, only two specimens of A. longimanus, the holotype and a paratype, were known. The new finding extends its distribution to about 2400 km southwards along the Brazilian coastline and provides a new maximum size for the species. Comparisons of the morphometric and meristic data between our specimens and those used in the original description are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The occurrence of the merluccid Macruronus novaezelandiae from tropical waters off Bahia, eastern Brazil, is reported for the first time due to the capture of an adult of 712.3 mm standard length in May 2008, from a depth of 400 m. Until then no specimen had been reported north of 32°29′S on the South American Atlantic coast. This new record extends the species' range to about 2500 km northwards along the Brazilian coastline and is the first ever from tropical waters in the world. A comparison of the morphometric characters is provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thyone pawsoni and Holothuria (Theelothuria) princeps are reported from shallow water of the South Atlantic Ocean. A morphological description of these new records with colour figures and scanning electron microscopy images of their ossicles are provided. With these two new records for the Brazilian Coast, the genus Thyone is now represented by two species and Holothuria by six. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]