Recombinant HDV S-HDAg (genotype I)

BackgroundHBV, HCV, HDV and HIV are blood borne and can be transmitted from mother-to-child. Reports of HBV infection rates show up to 11.9% in Cameroon while for HCV, the rate is less than 2%. More so, as pregnant women get enrolled in the HIV PMTCT Programme and stay in the care continuum, selection of HIV-1 drug resistant strains is evident. We sought to determine the seroprevalence of HBV, HCV, HDV and HIV among pregnant women, assess their knowledge, attitudes and practices on transmission and prevention of HBV infection, and determine HIV drug resistance profile of breastfeeding women.MethodsA serosurvey of HBV, HCV, HDV and HIV was carried out among 1005 pregnant women in Yaounde, Cameroon. In 40 HIV-infected breastfeeding women enrolled in the PMTCT Programme, HIV-1 genotypes and HIV-1 resistance to NRTIs, NNRTIs and PIs, were determined by phylogeny and the Stanford University HIV Drug Resistance interpretation tool, respectively.ResultsAmong the pregnant women, the rates of HIV-1, HBV, HCV and HDV infections were 8.5, 6.4, 0.8 and 4.0%, respectively. About 5.9% of the women knew their HBV status before pregnancy unlike 63.7% who knew their HIV status. Although 83.3% reported that vaccination against HBV infection is a method of prevention, and 47.1% knew that HBV could be transmitted from mother-to-child, only 2.5% had received the Hepatitis B vaccine. Of the 40 women on antiretroviral therapy (ART), 9 had at least one major resistance-associated mutation (RAM, 22.5%) to NRTI, NNRTI or PI. Of these M184V (12.5%), K70R (10.0%), K103N (12.5%), Y181C (10.0%), M46L (2.5%) and L90M (2.5%) were most frequently identified, suggesting resistance to lamivudine, nevirapine, efavirenz and zidovudine. Eighty four percent were infected with HIV-1 recombinant strains with CRF02_AG predominating (50%).ConclusionsThe rates of HBV and HIV-1 infections point to the need for early diagnosis of these viruses during pregnancy and referral to care services in order to minimize the risk of MTCT. Furthermore, our results would be useful for evaluating the HIV PMTCT Programme and Treatment Guidelines for Cameroon.

Despite that Heavy-Duty Vehicles (HDVs) represent a small part of the overall vehicle population they have been identified as one of the most important contributors to air pollution. This is one of the reasons why HDV emissions regulations are becoming more and more stringent worldwide. Following this trend, Europe introduced the Euro VI standard which includes more stringent emission limits for hydrocarbons, PM and NOx, while for the first time a limit for solid PN emissions was set. At the same time increased concern regarding greenhouse gas emissions led to a series of initiatives including HDVs CO2 certification and monitoring with the latest being the submission of a proposal for CO2 emission targets for 2025 and 2030. Despite the general concern, published data regarding Euro VI HDV emissions are scarce, while real-world emission factor measurements of regulated and unregulated pollutants are even more difficult to find. The main objective of this paper is to present real-world diesel Euro VI HDVs emissions of both gaseous pollutants and solid PN. For that reason five HDVs, including four trucks and one bus, were tested on-road under typical driving conditions. A breakdown of the emissions to low, medium, and high speed conditions was also performed with the aim investigating the performance of aftertreatment systems under different speed conditions. All tested vehicles performed better compared to older technology diesel HDVs, thus reflecting the technological improvements introduced over the last years. However, relatively high emissions were observed for some of the pollutants over low speed phases due to reduced effectiveness of the corresponding emission control systems. Calculated emission factors were also compared to existing emission inventories and good correlation was found for NOx, CO2 and solid PN emissions.