Search Results (12)

Climate change threatens health and social development gains in Kenya, necessitating health policy planning for risk reduction and mitigation. To understand the state of knowledge on climate-related health impacts in Kenya, a scoping review of 25 years of environmental health research was conducted. In compliance with a pre-registered protocol, nine bibliographic databases and grey literature sources were searched for articles published from 2000 to 2024. Of 19,234 articles screened, 816 full texts were reviewed in duplicate, and a final 348 articles underwent data extraction for topic categorisation, trend analysis, and narrative summary. Most of the studies (97%, n = 336) were journal articles, with 64% published after 2014 (n = 224). The health topics centred on vector-borne diseases (45%, n = 165), primarily vector abundance (n = 111) and malaria (n = 67), while mental health (n = 12) and heat exposure (n = 9) studies were less frequent. The research was geographically concentrated on the Lake Victoria Basin, Rift Valley, and Coastal regions, with fewer studies from the northern arid and semi-arid regions. The findings show a shift from a focus on infectious diseases towards broader non-communicable outcomes, as well as regional disparities in research coverage. This review highlights the development of baseline associations between environmental exposures and health outcomes in Kenya, providing a necessary foundation for evidence-informed climate change and health policy. However, challenges in data and study designs limit some of the evidentiary value. Full article

Background: Chronic inflammation is an important driver in the progression of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and atherosclerosis. The complement system, one of the first lines of defense in innate immunity, has been implicated in both diseases. However, the potential therapeutic value of complement inhibition in the ongoing disease remains unclear. Methods: After 20 weeks of high-fat diet (HFD) feeding, obese Ldlr-/-.Leiden mice were treated twice a week with an established anti-C5 antibody (BB5.1) or vehicle control. A separate group of mice was kept on a chow diet as a healthy reference. After 12 weeks of treatment, NASH was analyzed histopathologically, and genome-wide hepatic gene expression was analyzed by next-generation sequencing and pathway analysis. Atherosclerotic lesion area and severity were quantified histopathologically in the aortic roots. Results: Anti-C5 treatment considerably reduced complement system activity in plasma and MAC deposition in the liver but did not affect NASH. Anti-C5 did, however, reduce the development of atherosclerosis, limiting the total lesion size and severity independently of an effect on plasma cholesterol but with reductions in oxidized LDL (oxLDL) and macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF). Conclusion: We show, for the first time, that treatment with an anti-C5 antibody in advanced stages of NASH is not sufficient to reduce the disease, while therapeutic intervention against established atherosclerosis is beneficial to limit further progression. Full article

Background: The Delta (B.1.617.2) SARS-CoV-2 variant was the predominant UK circulating strain between May and November 2021. We investigated whether COVID-19 from Delta infection differed from infection with previous variants in children. Methods: Through the prospective COVID Symptom Study, 109,626 UK school-aged children were proxy-reported between 28 December 2020 and 8 July 2021. We selected all symptomatic children who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and were proxy-reported at least weekly, within two timeframes: 28 December 2020 to 6 May 2021 (Alpha (B.1.1.7), the main UK circulating variant) and 26 May to 8 July 2021 (Delta, the main UK circulating variant), with all children unvaccinated (as per national policy at the time). We assessed illness profiles (symptom prevalence, duration, and burden), hospital presentation, and presence of long (≥28 day) illness, and calculated odds ratios for symptoms presenting within the first 28 days of illness. Results: 694 (276 younger (5–11 years), 418 older (12–17 years)) symptomatic children tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 with Alpha infection and 706 (227 younger and 479 older) children with Delta infection. Median illness duration was short with either variant (overall cohort: 5 days (IQR 2–9.75) with Alpha, 5 days (IQR 2–9) with Delta). The seven most prevalent symptoms were common to both variants. Symptom burden over the first 28 days was slightly greater with Delta compared with Alpha infection (in younger children, 3 (IQR 2–5) symptoms with Alpha, 4 (IQR 2–7) with Delta; in older children, 5 (IQR 3–8) symptoms with Alpha, 6 (IQR 3–9) with Delta infection ). The odds of presenting several symptoms were higher with Delta than Alpha infection, including headache and fever. Few children presented to hospital, and long illness duration was uncommon, with either variant. Conclusions: COVID-19 in UK school-aged children due to SARS-CoV-2 Delta strain B.1.617.2 resembles illness due to the Alpha variant B.1.1.7., with short duration and similar symptom burden. Full article

Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) is a biodegradable polymer used for food packaging. The effects of electron beam radiation on the chemical and physical properties of amorphous PLA were studied. In this study, amorphous, racemic PLA was irradiated at doses of 5, 10, 15, and 20 kGy in the absence of oxygen. Utilizing electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometry, it was found that alkoxyl radicals are initially formed as a result of C-O-C bond scissions on the backbone of the PLA. The dominant radiation mechanism was determined to be H-abstraction by alkoxyl radicals to form C-centered radicals. The C-centered radicals undergo a subsequent peroxidation reaction with oxygen. The gel permeation chromatography (GPC) results indicate reduction in polymer molecular mass. The differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffraction results showed a subtle increase in crystallinity of the irradiated PLA. Water vapor transmission rates were unaffected by irradiation. In conclusion, these results support that irradiated PLA is a suitable material for applications in irradiation of food packaging, including food sterilization and biodegradation. Full article

An emerging theory about racial differences in cancer risk and outcomes is that psychological and social stressors influence cellular stress responses; however, limited empirical data are available on racial differences in cellular stress responses among men who are at risk for adverse prostate cancer outcomes. In this study, we undertook a systems approach to examine molecular profiles and cellular stress responses in an important segment of African American (AA) and European American (EA) men: men undergoing prostate biopsy. We assessed the prostate transcriptome with a single biopsy core via high throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq). Transcriptomic analyses uncovered impacted biological pathways including PI3K-Akt signaling pathway, Neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction pathway, and ECM-receptor interaction. Additionally, 187 genes mapping to the Gene Ontology (GO) terms RNA binding, structural constituent of ribosome, SRP-dependent co-translational protein targeting to membrane and the biological pathways, translation, L13a-mediated translational silencing of Ceruloplasmin expression were differentially expressed (DE) between EA and AA. This signature allowed separation of AA and EA patients, and AA patients with the most severe clinical characteristics. AA patients with elevated expression levels of this genomic signature presented with higher Gleason scores, a greater number of positive core biopsies, elevated dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate levels and serum vitamin D deficiency. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis revealed a high degree of connectivity between these 187 proteins. Full article

The red meat supply chain is a complex network transferring product from producers to consumers in a safe and secure way. There can be times when fragmentation can arise within the supply chain, which could be exploited. This risk needs reduction so that meat products enter the market with the desired attributes. Rapid Evaporative Ionisation Mass Spectrometry (REIMS) is a novel ambient mass spectrometry technique originally developed for rapid and accurate classification of biological tissue which is now being considered for use in a range of additional applications. It has subsequently shown promise for a range of food provenance, quality and safety applications with its ability to conduct ex vivo and in situ analysis. These are regarded as critical characteristics for technologies which can enable real-time decision making in meat processing plants and more broadly throughout the sector. This review presents an overview of the REIMS technology, and its application to the areas of provenance, quality and safety to the red meat industry, particularly in an Australian context. Full article

Protected areas are the backbone of biodiversity conservation but vulnerable to climate change. Thailand has a large and well-planned protected area system, covering most remaining natural vegetation. A statistically derived global environmental stratification (GEnS) was used to predict changes in bioclimatic conditions across the protected area system for 2050 and 2070, based on projections from three CMIP5 earth system models and two representative concentration pathways (RCPs). Five bioclimatic zones were identified composed of 28 strata. Substantial spatial reorganization of bioclimates is projected in the next 50 years, even under RCP2.6, while under RCP8.5 the average upward shift for all zones by 2070 is 328–483 m and the coolest zone disappears with two models. Overall, 7.9–31.0% of Thailand’s land area will change zone by 2070, and 31.7–90.2% will change stratum. The consequences for biodiversity are less clear, particularly in the lowlands where the existing vegetation mosaic is determined largely by factors other than climate. Increasing connectivity of protected areas along temperature and rainfall gradients would allow species to migrate in response to climate change, but this will be difficult in much of Thailand. For isolated protected areas and species that cannot move fast enough, more active, species-specific interventions may be necessary. Full article

The biological assessment of rivers i.e., their assessment through use of aquatic assemblages, integrates the effects of multiple-stressors on these systems over time and is essential to evaluate ecosystem condition and establish recovery measures. It has been undertaken in many countries since the 1990s, but not globally. And where national or multi-national monitoring networks have gathered large amounts of data, the poor water body classifications have not necessarily resulted in the rehabilitation of rivers. Thus, here we aimed to identify major gaps in the biological assessment and rehabilitation of rivers worldwide by focusing on the best examples in Asia, Europe, Oceania, and North, Central, and South America. Our study showed that it is not possible so far to draw a world map of the ecological quality of rivers. Biological assessment of rivers and streams is only implemented officially nation-wide and regularly in the European Union, Japan, Republic of Korea, South Africa, and the USA. In Australia, Canada, China, New Zealand, and Singapore it has been implemented officially at the state/province level (in some cases using common protocols) or in major catchments or even only once at the national level to define reference conditions (Australia). In other cases, biological monitoring is driven by a specific problem, impact assessments, water licenses, or the need to rehabilitate a river or a river section (as in Brazil, South Korea, China, Canada, Japan, Australia). In some countries monitoring programs have only been explored by research teams mostly at the catchment or local level (e.g., Brazil, Mexico, Chile, China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam) or implemented by citizen science groups (e.g., Southern Africa, Gambia, East Africa, Australia, Brazil, Canada). The existing large-extent assessments show a striking loss of biodiversity in the last 2–3 decades in Japanese and New Zealand rivers (e.g., 42% and 70% of fish species threatened or endangered, respectively). A poor condition (below Good condition) exists in 25% of South Korean rivers, half of the European water bodies, and 44% of USA rivers, while in Australia 30% of the reaches sampled were significantly impaired in 2006. Regarding river rehabilitation, the greatest implementation has occurred in North America, Australia, Northern Europe, Japan, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea. Most rehabilitation measures have been related to improving water quality and river connectivity for fish or the improvement of riparian vegetation. The limited extent of most rehabilitation measures (i.e., not considering the entire catchment) often constrains the improvement of biological condition. Yet, many rehabilitation projects also lack pre-and/or post-monitoring of ecological condition, which prevents assessing the success and shortcomings of the recovery measures. Economic constraints are the most cited limitation for implementing monitoring programs and rehabilitation actions, followed by technical limitations, limited knowledge of the fauna and flora and their life-history traits (especially in Africa, South America and Mexico), and poor awareness by decision-makers. On the other hand, citizen involvement is recognized as key to the success and sustainability of rehabilitation projects. Thus, establishing rehabilitation needs, defining clear goals, tracking progress towards achieving them, and involving local populations and stakeholders are key recommendations for rehabilitation projects (Table 1). Large-extent and long-term monitoring programs are also essential to provide a realistic overview of the condition of rivers worldwide. Soon, the use of DNA biological samples and eDNA to investigate aquatic diversity could contribute to reducing costs and thus increase monitoring efforts and a more complete assessment of biodiversity. Finally, we propose developing transcontinental teams to elaborate and improve technical guidelines for implementing biological monitoring programs and river rehabilitation and establishing common financial and technical frameworks for managing international catchments. We also recommend providing such expert teams through the United Nations Environment Program to aid the extension of biomonitoring, bioassessment, and river rehabilitation knowledge globally. Full article

Using deep sequencing technologies such as Illumina’s platform, it is possible to obtain reads from the viral RNA population revealing the viral genome diversity within a single host. A range of software tools and pipelines can transform raw deep sequencing reads into Sequence Alignment Mapping (SAM) files. We propose that interpretation tools should process these SAM files, directly translating individual reads to amino acids in order to extract statistics of interest such as the proportion of different amino acid residues at specific sites. This preserves per-read linkage between nucleotide variants at different positions within a codon location. The samReporter is a subsystem of the GLUE software toolkit which follows this direct read translation approach in its processing of SAM files. We test samReporter on a deep sequencing dataset obtained from a cohort of 241 UK HCV patients for whom prior treatment with direct-acting antivirals has failed; deep sequencing and resistance testing have been suggested to be of clinical use in this context. We compared the polymorphism interpretation results of the samReporter against an approach that does not preserve per-read linkage. We found that the samReporter was able to properly interpret the sequence data at resistance-associated locations in nine patients where the alternative approach was equivocal. In three cases, the samReporter confirmed that resistance or an atypical substitution was present at NS5A position 30. In three further cases, it confirmed that the sofosbuvir-resistant NS5B substitution S282T was absent. This suggests the direct read translation approach implemented is of value for interpreting viral deep sequencing data. Full article

Pancreatic islet transplantation is a promising treatment for type 1 diabetes mellitus offering improved glycaemic control by restoring insulin production. Improved human pancreatic islet isolation has led to higher islet transplantation success. However, as many as 50% of islets are lost after transplantation due to immune responses and cellular injury, gene therapy presents a novel strategy to protect pancreatic islets for improved survival post-transplantation. To date, most of the vectors used in clinical trials and gene therapy studies have been derived from mammalian viruses such as adeno-associated or retrovirus. However, baculovirus BacMam vectors provide an attractive and safe alternative. Here, a novel BacMam was constructed containing a frameshift mutation within fp25, which results in virus stocks with higher infectious titres. This improved in vitro transduction when compared to control BacMams. Additionally, incorporating a truncated vesicular stomatitis virus G protein increased transduction efficacy and production of EGFP and BCL2 in human kidney (HK-2) and pancreatic islet β cells (EndoC βH3). Lastly, we have shown that our optimized BacMam vector can deliver and express egfp in intact pancreatic islet cells from human cadaveric donors. These results confirm that BacMam vectors are a viable choice for providing delivery of transgenes to pancreatic islet cells. Full article

Disturbance is a critical ecological process in forested systems, and disturbance maps are important for understanding forest dynamics. Landsat data are a key remote sensing dataset for monitoring forest disturbance and there recently has been major growth in the development of disturbance mapping algorithms. Many of these algorithms take advantage of the high temporal data volume to mine subtle signals in Landsat time series, but as those signals become subtler, they are more likely to be mixed with noise in Landsat data. This study examines the similarity among seven different algorithms in their ability to map the full range of magnitudes of forest disturbance over six different Landsat scenes distributed across the conterminous US. The maps agreed very well in terms of the amount of undisturbed forest over time; however, for the ~30% of forest mapped as disturbed in a given year by at least one algorithm, there was little agreement about which pixels were affected. Algorithms that targeted higher-magnitude disturbances exhibited higher omission errors but lower commission errors than those targeting a broader range of disturbance magnitudes. These results suggest that a user of any given forest disturbance map should understand the map’s strengths and weaknesses (in terms of omission and commission error rates), with respect to the disturbance targets of interest. Full article

This paper presents the development of a real-time microsensor-based monitoring system that can be used to detect and characterize volatile organic compounds in soil and groundwater. The system employs an array of polymer-based microsensors (chemiresistors) packaged in a waterproof housing that is designed to protect the sensor from harsh subsurface environments, including completely water-saturated conditions. The sensors and packaging have been tested in field and laboratory environments, and characterization methods are being developed that utilize contaminant-transport models and time-dependent, in-situ sensor data to identify the location of the contaminant source. Full article