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Background and purpose A wide range of neuroradiological findings has been reported in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), ranging from subcortical white matter changes to infarcts, haemorrhages and focal contrast media enhancement. These have been descriptively but inconsistently reported and correlations with clinical findings and biomarkers have been difficult to extract from the literature. The purpose of this study was to quantify the extents of neuroradiological findings in a cohort of patients with COVID-19 and neurological symptoms, and to investigate correlations with clinical findings, duration of intensive care and biomarkers in blood. Material and methods Patients with positive SARS-CoV-2 and at least one new-onset neurological symptom were included from April until July 2020. Nineteen patients were examined regarding clinical symptoms, biomarkers in blood and MRI of the brain. In order to quantify the MRI findings, a semi-quantitative neuroradiological severity scale was constructed a priori, and applied to the MR images by two specialists in neuroradiology. Results and conclusions The score from the severity scale correlated significantly with blood biomarkers of CNS injury (glial fibrillary acidic protein, total-tau, ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase L1) and inflammation (C-reactive protein), Glasgow Coma Scale score, and the number of days spent in intensive care. The underlying radiological assessments had inter-rater agreements of 90.5%/86% (for assessments with 2/3 alternatives). Total intraclass correlation was 0.80. Previously reported neuroradiological findings in COVID-19 have been diverse and heterogenous. In this study, the extent of findings in MRI examination of the brain, quantified using a structured report, shows correlation with relevant biomarkers.

In many parts of the world, soils poor in nutrients are farmed with little addition of fertilizer, further depleting the farmland. The very same farmers often face poor sanitary solutions. So-called ecological sanitation aims at providing sanitation and at recycling nutrients as fertilizer. This human fertilizer may act as a substitute for artificial fertilizers (improving the household budget) or as a complement (improving soil quality, increasing agricultural yields). We collected demographic, economic and farming data from 618 households in southern Mali, of which 155 benefitted from an ecological sanitation investment program. We do not find any support for human fertilizer being used complementary, although the effect on yields varies over crops. Instead, we find that beneficiary households substitute artificial fertilizer with human fertilizer at 10 to 15 per cent of the average household use of artificial fertilizers. While our results imply small economic incentives at the household level for investing in ecological sanitation, we do not account for health effects at the household or community level.

Placental perfusion is of key interest for the understanding of the pathophysiology of different types of preeclampsia (PE). With magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) perfusion can be estimated non-invasively by calculation of the tissue perfusion fraction from a diffusion weighted sequence (DWI).Our primary aim was to investigate if women with early or late PE have different placental perfusion compared with normal pregnancies. A secondary aim was to investigate if placental perfusion changes with increased gestational length in normal pregnancy.5 women with early PE (34weeks), 8 women with late PE (⩾34weeks), and 19 women with normal pregnancies were included. All women underwent an MRI examination including a DWI sequence at 1.5T. The perfusion fraction was calculated.Women with early PE had a lower placental perfusion fraction (p=0.002) and women with late PE had a higher placental perfusion fraction (p=0.012) than gestational age matched women with normal pregnancies. The placental perfusion fraction decreased with increased gestational length in normal pregnancies (p=0.001).Our finding of reduced placental perfusion in early, but not late PE is in agreement with the hypothesis that early and late PE have partly different pathophysiology, where early PE is a mainly placental disease. The placental perfusion, as estimated by the perfusion fraction, decreased with increased gestational length in normal pregnancies.