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Senegal is affected by a relatively high prevalence of iodine deficiency disorders, which compromises its social and economic development. To address this situation, the Universal Salt Iodization strategy was adopted by the Senegalese Government. The monitoring of salt iodine status is crucial to the success of such a program. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the iodine concentration of table salt from Senegalese households. A total of 1575 samples collected in urban and rural areas were analyzed using the iodometric method. The powdered salt samples showed higher mean iodine content (18.99 ppm) and lower percentage of non-compliance (58.4%) than the other salt types (p = 0.02). Most of the samples collected from urban area were found with iodine content between 15 and 39.9 ppm, whereas, in rural areas, the situation was significantly different (p = 0.01). Iodine levels of most samples were lower than 5 ppm in the rural producing area or varied between 5 to 14.9 ppm in the rural non-producing area. A percentage of 37.3% of adequately iodized salt samples was obtained at a national scale with a significant disparity between urban and rural areas. Therefore, improvements in quality control procedures in tandem with the iodization process are necessary and an information, education and communication strategy should be adopted.

Cucurbits are largely grown in tropical and subtropical areas for nutritional and medicinal purposes. In Senegal, two species, watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) and pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo), are cultivated and their use include consumption of flesh or the whole fruit. In general, people don’t give importance to seeds which can have nutritional properties of great interest. Hence, the relevance of this study whose objective is to assess the nutritional and therapeutic properties of seeds. For that purpose, the seeds of watermelon and pumpkin were air-dried, manually shelled, ground, and subjected to assays including physicochemical determination, characterization of oils, phytochemical screening and antioxidant analysis. Proteins (28.46 - 32.85 %), fat (36.3 - 39.7 %) and carbohydrates (23.6 - 13.9 %) were the main chemical components found in watermelon and pumpkin seeds. Micro-elements such as potassium, magnesium, phosphorous, calcium, and iron were also found with potassium showing the highest levels as 1026.07 and 635.00 mg/100 g for watermelon and pumpkin, respectively. Magnesium and phosphorous were the following minerals in terms of level content. The unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs) were predominant in seed oils with the linoleic acid most representative as 73.01 and 35.90% for watermelon and pumpkin, respectively. From the saturated fatty acids (SFAs), the palmitic acid was the most important. Phytochemical components in seeds include the presence of alkaloids, cardiac glycosides, flavonoids, and tannins in the ethanolic extracts of pumpkin and watermelon seeds. Regarding to the radical scavenging activity, relatively close values have been obtained for fractions from the ethanolic watermelon extract, the aqueous fraction showing the highest antioxidant activity (26.82%). For pumpkin, the highest values were registered for ethyl acetate and aqueous fractions as 36.17 and 35.36%, respectively. Therefore, seeds from watermelons and pumpkin cultivated in Senegal exhibited interesting nutritional and antioxidant properties which argue in favor of their use to overcome malnutrition issues.

In Senegal, social-economic changes have likely affected dietary habits. As in many parts of the world, Senegalese children consume significant amounts of food between main meals (snacking) with a wide consumption of soft drinks and chips products which can have negative effects on children sanitary health. This study aims at investigating some dietary habits of Senegalese school-age children and the nutritional composition of some snacking products to alleviate nutrition and health issues caused by food quality. A survey was carried out in schools in some districts of Dakar and allowed to identify the most consumed soft drinks and chips from which samples were taken and subjected to physicochemical analysis. Snacking was a common habit in Senegalese school-age children with 68% declaring regular consumption of chips and 88% that of sweetened drinks. The main component in soft drinks after water was carbohydrates with contents ranging between 6.50 ± 0.27 and 13.75 ± 0.01% and energy values varying between 26.00 ± 1.09 and 54.99 ± 0.04 kcal/100g. Some minerals such as magnesium, sodium, potassium and calcium were also present with levels comprised between 4.35 ± 0.15 mg/100g to 167.41 ± 9.50 mg/100g. The ranges were: Mg (8.26 ± 0.23-12.11 ± 0.84), Na (4.35 ± 0.15-8.18 ± 0.10), K (4.50 ± 0.35-8.18 ± 0.52) and Ca (120.51 ± 10.90-167.41 ± 9.50). The macronutrients in chips were proteins (5.95 ± 0.10 - 10.70 ± 0.05%), fat (19.86 ± 0.65 - 35.94 ± 0.01%), carbohydrates (47.43 ± 0.44 - 64.65 ± 0.78%) and dietary fiber (1.55 ± 0.10 - 2.13 ± 0.23%). Sodium and potassium were also present with levels of 580.04 ± 23.98 to 692.97 ± 40.78 mg/100g for sodium and 159.84 ± 6.86 to 318.57 ± 1.09 mg/100g for potassium. The results of this study can help orient the strategies to put into effect in order to inform children and their parents on the best diets to adopt for a healthy and quality life.

This study aimed at validating an analytical method, using the accuracy profile approach, for the assay of chlorphenamine maleate by capillary electrophoresis. The validation was done using concentrations ranging between 75% and 125% of the target concentration of 600 mg/ml. Validation standards were prepared separately in triplicate for each series. Studied validation criteria were selectivity, linearity, trueness, precision (repeatability and intermediate precision), accuracy and limits of detection and quantification. The method was selective, with recoveries ranging between 99.55% and 99.84%. The relative standard deviations of repeatability and intermediate precision were