Senegal's growing demand for fish protein, paired with declining wild fish stocks, has prompted the strategic development of inland aquaculture. This study provides the first assessment of pesticide contamination in surface water (SW) and groundwater (GW) across Senegal’s major aquaculture zones. Eighteen intake water samples were collected during the 2022 rainy season from 17 aquaculture farms located across the Senegal, Gambia, and Casamance river basins. A total of 136 substances including 44 active substances (ASs) and 92 transformation products (TPs) were targeted and analyzed using. The results showed that only three parent pesticides (atrazine, N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide (DEET), and metolachlor), were quantified in the analyzed samples, while no transformation products (TPs) were detected. DEET was the most frequently quantified compound (67
Ticks occupy diverse habitats, increasing the risk of human exposure. Assessing the public health threat posed by ticks requires rigorous monitoring of their distribution and of the prevalence of tick-borne pathogens. In France since 2017, the citizen science program CiTIQUE monitors human tick bites through multiple complementary approaches. Citizens can report bites and submit biting ticks to a national tick bank for research and surveillance. This study aimed to investigate human exposure to tick-borne microorganisms including pathogens across France, using ticks submitted through the CiTIQUE program. In total, 2009 ticks were selected from the CiTIQUE tick bank, identified, and screened for microorganisms using a real-time microfluidic PCR method. Most bites involved Ixodes ricinus nymphs except in Mediterranean regions where Dermacentor and Rhipicephalus ticks were more common. Twenty-six microorganisms were detected, eighteen of which are potentially pathogenic to humans. These pathogens were widely distributed across the country. Borrelia spp. were the most frequently detected pathogens with spatial variation among regions. Anaplasma phagocytophilum infection rates varied from region to region. Neoehrlichia mikurensis was found in seven out of twelve French regions. Rickettsia species diversity was highest in the southeast, associated with a greater diversity of vectors. Five percent of ticks were infected with more than one pathogen. Although spatial heterogeneity was observed, no region was free of infected ticks. This study demonstrates the power of citizen science for nationwide surveillance of tick-borne pathogens, providing a large-scale overview of pathogen diversity and distribution across France from crowdsourced tick data.
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into chemical risk assessment (CRA) is emerging as a powerful approach to enhance the interpretation of complex toxicological data and accelerate safety evaluations. However, the regulatory uptake of AI remains limited due to concerns about transparency, explainability, and trustworthiness. The European Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC) project ReadyAI was established to address these challenges by developing a readiness scoring system to evaluate the maturity and regulatory applicability of AI-based models in CRA. The project unites a multidisciplinary consortium of academic, regulatory, and legal experts to define transparent and reproducible criteria encompassing data curation, model development, validation, explainability, and uncertainty quantification. Current efforts focus on identifying key priorities, including harmonized terminology, rigorous data quality standards, case studies, and targeted training of regulatory scientists. ReadyAI aims to deliver a practical, evidence-based scoring system that enables regulators to assess whether AI tools are sufficiently reliable for decision-making and guides developers toward compliance with regulatory expectations. By bridging the gap between AI innovation and regulatory applicability, ReadyAI contributes to the responsible integration of AI into chemical safety assessment frameworks, ultimately supporting human and environmental health protection.
Hepatitis A virus (HAV) and norovirus are regularly involved in foodborne outbreaks associated with food of animal origin and meat products. This study aimed to characterize a viral elution-concentration method using polyethylene glycol (PEG) precipitation for recovering hepatitis A (HAV) and human noroviruses (genogroup I and genogroup II) from meat products. Various ready-to-eat meat products containing beef, pork, lamb, or chicken were artificially contaminated with HAV and human noroviruses. All the analyses included a process control virus and external amplification controls. The recovery efficiencies of viruses and the limit of detection (LOD) values were determined. Viral recovery from meat products in pure RNA extracts ranged from 1.22% to 100.00% for HAV, from 11.77% to 100.00% for norovirus GI, and from 2.83% to 35.97% for norovirus GII. Murine norovirus (MNV-1)-used as the sample process control virus-was successfully recovered from all samples (>1%) and the mean PCR inhibition rate was less than 50% for most of the foodstuffs analyzed. The LOD50 calculated for all samples was 1.53 × 104 genome copies/g for HAV and ranged between 13 and 61 genome copies/g for norovirus GI and norovirus GII. The LOD95 was 6.66 × 104 genome copies/g for HAV and ranged between 56 and 263 genome copies/g for norovirus GI and norovirus GII. This method could be used to investigate HAV and norovirus foodborne outbreaks involving meat products.
Le partenariat pour l’évaluation des risques liés aux produits chimiques (PARC) est un partenariat public–public qui œuvre en faveur de la santé humaine et de l’environnement en développant une meilleure évaluation des risques chimiques et en soutenant la mise en œuvre de la recherche et de l’innovation pour le bien de la société. Depuis 2022, plus de 200 partenaires provenant de 30 pays unissent leurs efforts dans le cadre de PARC pour un budget total de 400 millions d’euros.PARC mène des études ciblées sur les risques professionnels pour la santé, d’abord sur deux secteurs présentant un potentiel d’exposition important : la gestion des déchets et les soins de santé. L’objectif est de recueillir des données à l’échelle européenne sur les niveaux d’exposition des travailleurs de ces secteurs et de soutenir les mesures réglementaires.Dans le secteur de la gestion des déchets, les travailleurs peuvent être exposés à des produits chimiques dangereux lors du tri et du traitement de ces déchets. Le projet porte sur l’exposition aux métaux, retardateurs de flamme, les phtalates et autres plastifiants, bisphénols, PFAS et HAP. Des biomarqueurs d’effet sont également intégrés pour évaluer les liens entre l’exposition et les effets néfastes sur la santé. Des campagnes d’échantillonnage ont été menées dans les 13 pays participants. Dans le secteur des soins de santé, les travailleurs sont exposés à des substances nocives, notamment des médicaments. Malgré les récentes réglementations et lignes directrices de l’UE, des données supplémentaires sont nécessaires pour évaluer l’efficacité de ces mesures sur la sécurité des travailleurs. L’étude porte sur les médicaments dangereux, les anesthésiques inhalés et les produits de désinfection/nettoyage. Ces expositions sont étudiées dans 11 pays. Par ailleurs, de nouvelles enquêtes HBM sont en cours de lancement dans les secteurs de la gestion des déchets textiles et du soudage.PARC élabore aussi des valeurs guides sanitaires (HBM-GV) pour les populations professionnelles. L’application des principes FAIR aux données permet de pallier aux difficultés liées à l’intégration des données HBM avec les données d’examens de santé, d’enquêtes professionnelles, géospatiales et alimentaires.
