1%). A significant percentage of them never received information about proper medication disposal practice (79.5%). Furthermore, more than half of the respondents were unaware that unsafe medication disposal practices could harm the environment and population health (53.1%).

Disposal of unwanted pharmaceutical products through environmentally unsafe route was prevalent among the respondents. There is also a lack of awareness of the impact of improperly disposed of medicines for the ecosystem. These findings call upon the strategies to strengthen the pharmaceutical waste management program.

Disposal of unwanted pharmaceutical products through environmentally unsafe route was prevalent among the respondents. There is also a lack of awareness of the impact of improperly disposed of medicines for the ecosystem. These findings call upon the strategies to strengthen the pharmaceutical waste management program.Cholesterol (Chol) interacts with lipoproteins, in order to be transported through the aqueous bloodstream. High density lipoproteins (HDL) and low density lipoproteins (LDL) transport cholesterol differently, a result that may be due to a difference in their interactions with cholesterol. Here, we investigated how the lipoprotein type affects the interaction with cholesterol by using a Langmuir trough and fluorescence microscope. We studied pure monolayers of 1) Chol, 2) LDL, and 3) HDL, and mixed monolayers of 1) Chol-LDL, and 2) Chol-HDL at air/water interfaces. Images of the Chol-LDL mixed monolayer showed many small sterol domains distributed in the non-sterol molecules (e.g. phospholids, proteins and lipids) of LDL. The sterol domains that were seen in the Chol-HDL mixed monolayer were larger in size but smaller in number than those seen in the Chol-LDL mixed monolayers. read more These images and the excess area, excess free energy, and free energy of mixing values obtained from the thermodynamic analysis of the surface pressure-area per molecule isotherms suggested that the cholesterol phase separated more from HDL than from LDL. Cholesterol was therefore concluded to interact with LDL better than with HDL. This more favorable interaction was explained by the presence of hydrophobic interactions between cholesterol and Apo-B, the major apoprotein of LDL.Tick-borne bacteria pose a significant threat to human and veterinary public health. Greece is a Mediterranean country with rich tick fauna and the most commonly detected tick-borne bacterial pathogens are members of the Rickettsia and Anaplasma species. The variable V2-V4 and V6-V9 regions of 16S rRNA gene of seven ticks belonging to four genera representative in Greece (Ixodes, Rhipicephalus, Dermacentor, Haemophyssalis) were analysed using multiple primer pairs by next generation sequencing (NGS). Nine bacterial phyla corresponding to 95 families, 116 genera and 172 species were identified. Proteobacteria was the predominant phylum in five of the seven ticks, followed by Actinobacteria, which predominated in two ticks. The tick-borne bacteria included Rickettsia and Anaplasma species, while “Candidatus Midichloria mitochondrii” were detected in high abundance in I. ricinus ticks and less in Rhipicephalus bursa; Coxiella-like endosymbionts were detected in Rh. sanguineus, H. parva, and less in Rh. bursa ticks. Co-infections with Rickettsia and Anaplasma were also observed. 16S rRNA NGS is a powerful tool to investigate the tick bacteriome and can improve the strategies for prevention and control of tick-borne diseases.Emissions from landfills are a significant source of non-methane volatile organic compounds (NMVOCs) in urban environments. NMVOCs play an important role in atmospheric chemistry, and elevated concentrations of some compounds are responsible for air quality deterioration. This study is based on the measurements of a suite of 20 C2-C8 NMVOCs at 21 upwind and downwind sites of the largest landfill in western India. Ethane, ethylene and aromatics were the dominant compounds; the concentrations of BTEX in the downwind regions were up to three times higher than their concentrations at upwind sites. The emission ratios of BTEX and other NMVOCs were different from those for residential, commercial, and industrial sources characterizing the emissions from burning and decomposition of organic material. The slope of ΔToluene/ΔBenzene of 0.64 is about three times higher than that determined at the main road junctions of the city. Ranking by Prop-Equiv, the top NMVOCs were isoprene, cis-2-Butene, m + p-xylenes, propylene, ethylene and trans-2-Butene account for 72-75% of the total Prop-Equiv concentrations. Alkenes played the dominant role in ozone formation, followed by aromatic and alkane groups. In addition to landfill emissions, contributions from traffic-related emissions to ambient concentrations of aromatic VOCs were also significant at some sites. Although the experiment was not designed to characterize the emissions from a specific source, the analysis suggests the substantial contributions from both decomposition and burning of landfill materials. The main difficulty in characterizing VOC emissions from landfills is the spatial and temporal variability of emissions from a large area.Cirrhosis commonly complicates portal hypertension worldwide but in Zambia hepatosplenic schistosomiasis (HSS) dominates as the cause of portal hypertension. We need easier and non-invasive ways to assess HSS. Transient elastography (TE), a measure of liver stiffness can diagnose liver cirrhosis. TE remains unexplored in HSS patients, who generally have normal liver parenchyma. We aimed to explore liver stiffness in HSS. This nested case control study was conducted at the University Teaching Hospital, Lusaka, Zambia between January 2015 and January 2016. We enrolled 48 adults with HSS and 22 healthy controls. We assessed liver stiffness using TE while plasma hyaluronan was used to assess liver fibrosis. Plasma tumor necrosis factor receptor 1 (TNFR1) and soluble cluster of differentiation 14 (sCD14) were used to assess inflammation. The median (interquartile range) liver stiffness was higher in patients, 9.5 kPa (7.8, 12.8) than in controls, 4.7 kPa (4.0, 5.4), P less then 0.0001. We noted linear correlations of hyaluronan and TNFR1 with the liver stiffness, P = 0.