Environmental exposure to active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can have negative effects on the health of ecosystems and humans. While numerous studies have monitored APIs in rivers, these employ different analytical methods, measure different APIs, and have ignored many of the countries of the world. This makes it difficult to quantify the scale of the problem from a global perspective. Furthermore, comparison of the existing data, generated for different studies/regions/continents, is challenging due to the vast differences between the analytical methodologies employed. Here, we present a global-scale study of API pollution in 258 of the world’s rivers, representing the environmental influence of 471.4 million people across 137 geographic regions. Samples were obtained from 1,052 locations in 104 countries (representing all continents and 36 countries not previously studied for API contamination) and analyzed for 61 APIs. Highest cumulative API concentrations were observed in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia, and South America. The most contaminated sites were in low- to middle-income countries and were associated with areas with poor wastewater and waste management infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The most frequently detected APIs were carbamazepine, metformin, and caffeine (a compound also arising from lifestyle use), which were detected at over half of the sites monitored. Concentrations of at least one API at 25.7% of the sampling sites were greater than concentrations considered safe for aquatic organisms, or which are of concern in terms of selection for antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, pharmaceutical pollution poses a global threat to environmental and human health, as well as to delivery of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The pig, Sus scrofa, is a foreign species to the American continent. Although pigs originally introduced in the Americas should be related to those from the Iberian Peninsula and Canary islands, the phylogeny of current creole pigs that now populate the continent is likely to be very complex. Because of the extreme climates that America harbors, these populations also provide a unique example of a fast evolutionary phenomenon of adaptation. Here, we provide a genome wide study of these issues by genotyping, with a 60k SNP chip, 206 village pigs sampled across 14 countries and 183 pigs from outgroup breeds that are potential founders of the American populations, including wild boar, Iberian, international and Chinese breeds. Results show that American village pigs are primarily of European ancestry, although the observed genetic landscape is that of a complex conglomerate. There was no correlation between genetic and geographical distances, neither continent wide nor when analyzing specific areas. Most populations showed a clear admixed structure where the Iberian pig was not necessarily the main component, illustrating how international breeds, but also Chinese pigs, have contributed to extant genetic composition of American village pigs. We also observe that many genes related to the cardiovascular system show an increased differentiation between altiplano and genetically related pigs living near sea level.

Four multiplex PCR assays for detection of 19 enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) colonization factorsand an improved ETEC toxin multiplex PCR were developed and tested on Bangladeshi and Bolivian ETEC strain collections. The assays will be useful for surveillance of ETEC infections in diagnostic laboratories that have access to PCR.Infection with enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is one of the main causes of childhood diarrhea in developing countries and in travelers to these areas (7). ETEC strains express one or both of two different enterotoxins, the heatstable toxins (STh and STp) and a heat-labile toxin (LT), and more than 23 different colonization factors (CFs) that are named CFA/I and CS1 to CS22 (2). The LT enterotoxin and the CF antigens are immunogenic, and one or both of these components are included in most vaccines that are being developed against ETEC diarrhea (14,15). To evaluate the putative impact of different vaccine compositions on ETEC diarrhea, it is important to characterize clinical ETEC isolates from different parts of the world with regard to toxin and CF profiles, since they have been observed to vary from one geographic region to another (4,7,8,10,12).In order to simplify and accelerate the detection of the different CFs and toxins by PCR, we have established a set of multiplex PCR assays for detection of the most-prevalent CFs and the toxins using previously established primers (11), as well as new primers when appropriate. The CF primers were assembled into four panels designed to amplify 19 of the most common CFs, and a new set of STh primers was included in the previously established toxin multiplex PCR (Table 1).To establish the multiplex assays for the CFs and toxins, 10-to 100-ng amounts of DNA from ETEC reference strains boiled in water (Table 1) were mixed with master mix as described previously (11), except that 400 nM deoxynucleoside triphosphates and 8 to 10 forward and reverse primers at a final concentration of 200 nM each were added to the mix. The PCRs were amplified by an initial denaturation at 94°C (1 min), followed by 35 cycles of amplification (94°C for 30 s, 52°C for 30 s, and 72°C for 1 min), and finally, 5 min at 72°C. The products were run on 3% agarose gels or 3% MetaPhor gels (MetaPhor agarose; Cambrex Bio Science Rockland, Inc.) for better resolution and visualized under UV light (Fig. 1). Only the correct CF and toxin PCR products were amplified, and by mixing several strains and performing multiplex PCR on the mixed DNA, we verified that the primers in each panel could detect the presence of several CFs in one reaction.To evaluate the new multiplex PCR methods for ETEC toxins and CFs, 106 clinical ETEC isolates were analyzed by multiplex PCR and the results were compared with results obtained by using the previously established ETEC toxin multiplex PCR and with the dot blot method using available monoclonal antibodies (11). We used two different sets of ETEC strains that were isolated in two geographically different developing countries: 65 Boli...

Five subgroups of sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) were detected by PCR in three macrophyte rhizospheres (Polygonum densiflorum, Hymenachne donacifolia, and Ludwigia helminthorriza) and three subgroups in Eichhornia crassipes from La Granja, a floodplain lake from the upper Madeira basin. The SRB community varied according to the macrophyte species but with different degrees of association with their roots. The rhizosphere of the C 4 plant Polygonum densiflorum had higher frequencies of SRB subgroups as well as higher mercury methylation potentials (27.5 to 36.1%) and carbon (16.06 ؎ 5.40%), nitrogen (2.03 ؎ 0.64%), Hg (94.50 ؎ 6.86 ng Hg g ؊1 ), and methylmercury (8.25 ؎ 1.45 ng Hg g ؊1 ) contents than the rhizosphere of the C 3 plant Eichhornia crassipes. Mercury methylation in Polygonum densiflorum and Eichhornia crassipes was reduced when SRB metabolism was inhibited by sodium molybdate.

Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of two doses of a monovalent rotavirus vaccine (RV1) against hospital admission for rotavirus in Bolivia.Design Case-control study.Setting Six hospitals in Bolivia, between March 2010 and June 2011.Participants 400 hospital admissions for rotavirus, 1200 non-diarrhea hospital controls, and 718 rotavirus negative hospital controls. Main outcome measuresOdds of antecedent vaccination between case patients and controls; effectiveness of vaccination ((1-adjusted odds ratio)×100), adjusted for age and other confounders; and stratified effectiveness by dose, disease severity, age group, and serotype. ResultsIn comparison with non-diarrhea controls, case patients were more likely to be male and attend day care but less likely to have chronic underlying illness, higher level maternal education, and telephones and computers in their home. Rotavirus negative controls were somewhat more similar to case patients but also were more likely to be male and attend day care and less likely to have higher level maternal education and computers in their homes. The adjusted effectiveness of RV1 against hospital admission for rotavirus was 69% (95% confidence interval 54% to 79%) with rotavirus negative controls and 77% (65% to 84%) with non-diarrhea controls. The effectiveness of one dose of RV1 was 36% and 56%, respectively. With both control groups, protection was sustained through two years of life, with similar efficacy against hospital admission among children under 1 year (64% and 77%) and over 1 year of age (72% and 76%). RV1 provided significant protection against diverse serotypes, partially and fully heterotypic to the G1P[8] vaccine. Effectiveness using the two control groups was 80% and 85% against G9P[8], 74% and 93%% against G3P[8], 59% and 69% against G2P [4], and 80% and 87% against G9P[6] strains. ConclusionThe monovalent rotavirus vaccine conferred high protection against hospital admission for diarrhea due to rotavirus in Bolivian children. Protection was sustained through two years of life against diverse serotypes different from the vaccine strain.