Sporopollenin exine capsules (SpECs) derived from Lycopodium clavatum provide practical antioxidant properties by retarding rancidification of an ω-3 oil

In recent years the use of natural antioxidants in foodstuffs and personal care products has become increasingly important for consumers and therefore manufacturers. In this work, sporopollenin exine capsules (SpECs), extracted from spores of the common club moss Lycopodium clavatum L, have been shown to protect an ω-3 oil from oxidation caused by natural light or accelerated oxidation with UV irradiation. The mechanism of action has been shown to be principally by free radical quenching as opposed to light shielding, supported by evidence of similarity in levels of protection when the ratio of SpECs to oil was 0.2 % w/v compared with 50 % w/w. The antioxidant effect is not materially altered by the extraction process from the raw material and is clearly an inherent property of the sporopollenin contained in the spores of L. clavatum due to the accessible phenolic groups on the surface on the SpECs. These results provide promising evidence that SpECs could be useful as a bio-sourced antioxidant for protecting ω-3 oils and related oxidation-prone molecules

Modelling the risk of Taenia solium exposure from pork produced in western Kenya

The tapeworm Taenia solium is the parasite responsible for neurocysticercosis, a neglected tropical disease of public health importance, thought to cause approximately 1/3 of epilepsy cases across endemic regions. The consumption of undercooked infected pork perpetuates the parasite’s life-cycle through the establishment of adult tapeworm infections in the community. Reducing the risk associated with pork consumption in the developing world is therefore a public health priority. The aim of this study was to estimate the risk of any one pork meal in western Kenya containing a potentially infective T. solium cysticercus at the point of consumption, an aspect of the parasite transmission that has not been estimated before. To estimate this, we used a quantitative food chain risk assessment model built in the @RISK add-on to Microsoft Excel. This model indicates that any one pork meal consumed in western Kenya has a 0.006 (99% Uncertainty Interval (U.I). 0.0002–0.0164) probability of containing at least one viable T. solium cysticercus at the point of consumption and therefore being potentially infectious to humans. This equates to 22,282 (99% U.I. 622–64,134) potentially infective pork meals consumed in the course of one year within Busia District alone. This model indicates a high risk of T. solium infection associated with pork consumption in western Kenya and the work presented here can be built upon to investigate the efficacy of various mitigation strategies for this locality

One health, une seule santé

One Health, « Une seule santé », est une stratégie mondiale visant à développer les collaborations interdisciplinaires pour la santé humaine, animale et environnementale. Elle promeut une approche intégrée, systémique et unifiée de la santé aux échelles locale, nationale et mondiale, afin de mieux affronter les maladies émergentes à risque pandémique, mais aussi s'adapter aux impacts environnementaux présents et futurs. Bien que ce mouvement s’étende, la littérature en français reste rare. Traduit de l’anglais, coordonné par d’éminents épidémiologistes et s'appuyant sur un large panel d' approches scientifiques rarement réunies autour de la santé, cet ouvrage retrace les origines du concept et présente un contenu pratique sur les outils méthodologiques, la collecte de données, les techniques de surveillance et les plans d’étude. Il combine recherche et pratique en un seul volume et constitue un ouvrage de référence unique pour la santé mondiale

PLANTWISE: A GLOBAL PLANT HEALTH ALLIANCE

At the beginning of 2010, the international science-based development organization CABI announced the launch of its Plantwise initiative, a major program to create a global plant health information resource and surveillance system, aimed at benefiting scientists, policymakers, and farmers. Central to the Plantwise concept is a 'knowledge bank' delivering a single point of access for all plant pest and disease information. The plan is to bring together all the best information about plant pests and diseases, aggregate it, structure it, update it, and make it searchable so that scientists can recognize complex patterns of information across multiple sites. CABI itself has a number of pieces of the jigsaw already in place, in the form of its existing data and publishing capability, including CAB Abstracts and the Crop Protection Compendium (CPC), together with its network of plant health clinics. The plant health clinics advise farmers in developing countries on pests and diseases in the way a health center does for humans. They are run by local technical people, trained by CABI, who visit rural markets every week. Farmers drop by with samples of diseased plants, to get the problem identified and to learn what to do about it. CABI is actively expanding the number of clinics to 400 in 40 countries by 2015. As well as providing immediate benefits to local farmers, the clinics are becoming a most effective field-based early warning system, helping to monitor plant pests and diseases and indicate where more systematic surveillance programmes are required. The clinics provide regular new disease reports. Indeed, since the first clinic was created in 2002, a total of 47 new diseases have been confirmed. With more than ten times the current number of clinics in operation, we will expect much greater reporting of emerging problems which can then be digitized and laid on a map. Over time, we will be able to track the distribution and incidence of each pest or disease while plant scientists, armed with current and reliable reports, can get a grip on what really is going on and recommend timely mitigation strategies. Through Plantwise, CABI will also be able to present linked references to articles about specific pests, the crops they affect, the damage they cause, and suggested treatment. The current prototype allows users to search by crop, by pest, by country, or even by soil type. The knowledge bank will also contain images for identification of pests, description of their relationship with the plant host, and contact details of local services. Plantwise is a collaborative initiative. As well as donors, CABI is seeking both institutions and individuals to provide shared content and to help review the knowledge bank as it develops. (Contact Phil Abrahams [[email protected]] to find out more about Plantwise.