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INTRODUCTION: Hydroxychloroquine use in COVID-19 patients was widespread and uncontrolled until recently. Patients vulnerable to severe COVID-19 are at risk for hydroxychloroquine interactions with comorbidities and co-medications contributing to detrimental, including fatal adverse treatment effects. METHODS: This is a retrospective survey of health conditions and co-medications of COVID-19 patients who were pre-screened for enrolment into a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled hydroxychloroquine multicenter trial. RESULTS: Our survey involved 305 patients (median age 71 (IQR: 59-81) years). The majority of patients (N = 279, 92%) considered for inclusion into the clinical trial were not eligible mainly due to safety concerns caused by health conditions or co-medications. Most common were QT prolonging drugs (N = 188, 62%) and hematologic/hemato-oncologic diseases (N = 39, 13%) which prohibited the administration of hydroxychloroquine in our clinical trial. Additionally, 165 (54%) patients had health conditions and 167 (55%) were on co-medications that did not prohibit hydroxychloroquine treatment but had a risk of adverse interactions with hydroxychloroquine. Most common were diabetes (N = 86, 28%), renal insufficiency (N = 69, 23%) and heart failure (N = 58, 19%). CONCLUSION: The majority of hospitalized COVID-19 patients had health conditions or took co-medications precluding safe treatment with hydroxychloroquine. Therefore, especially in elderly, hydroxychloroquine should be administered with extreme caution and only in clinical trials.

Google's ‘Community Mobility Reports’ (CMR) detail changes in activity and mobility occurring in response to COVID-19. They thus offer the unique opportunity to examine the relationship between mobility and disease incidence. The objective was to examine whether an association between COVID-19-confirmed case numbers and levels of mobility was apparent, and if so then to examine whether such data enhance disease modelling and prediction. CMR data for countries worldwide were cross-correlated with corresponding COVID-19-confirmed case numbers. Models were fitted to explain case numbers of each country's epidemic. Models using numerical date, contemporaneous and distributed lag CMR data were contrasted using Bayesian Information Criteria. Noticeable were negative correlations between CMR data and case incidence for prominent industrialised countries of Western Europe and the North Americas. Continent-wide examination found a negative correlation for all continents with the exception of South America. When modelling, CMR-expanded models proved superior to the model without CMR. The predictions made with the distributed lag model significantly outperformed all other models. The observed relationship between CMR data and case incidence, and its ability to enhance model quality and prediction suggests data related to community mobility could prove of use in future COVID-19 modelling.

Scientific fields are always changing, and it is important to determine the directions in which they are heading as plans are made for future research activities and research results transition to applications and policies. The MycoKey project, an EU-funded Horizon 2020 project, includes a series of "Roundtable Discussions" to gather information from leading researchers inside and outside the project on directions in which the field of mycotoxicology is trending. This presentation includes a summary of the roundtable discussion on priorities and critical issues in chemical detection and monitoring of mycotoxins. The goal was to identify key elements that could impact when and how methods are used to identify mycotoxins and to increase food safety. The discussion was managed by using the Nominal Group discussion Technique (NGT). The NGT provides for equal input from all participants and is well-known as a process for generating a large number of ideas, while also providing a mechanism for ranking them. The discussion was focused on four following key questions: oto identify scientific and technological innovations which hold promise for development/improvement in the future (question 1); oto identify and prioritize critical elements making methods effectively applicable in -industry for autocontrol and HACCP (question 2), -developing countries with limited analytical capabilities (question 3), -official control with particular reference to multi-mycotoxin methods (question 4). The rankings and the total list of responses provided a rich and detailed context from which particular ideas and general trends could be extracted. Test kits, usually antibody based, were one major focus of the discussions because of their many favorable features, e.g., cost, speed, and ease of use. Most important was considered the degree to which antibody-based diagnostics have become an acceptable standard in many practical applications. Much of the discussion was on how to improve these kits and to speed the detection of mycotoxins in locations where access to a well-equipped analytical chemistry laboratory is neither timely nor cost-effective. The second area of focus for this discussion was multi-mycotoxin detection protocols and challenges remaining before these protocols become methods of choice for regulated mycotoxins. This second point mirrors the first, through the increasing importance of technically highly sophisticated multi-mycotoxin detection protocols. These protocols need more standardization and cross-laboratory validation, but are the future for many official regulatory controls, especially as the number of toxins that are regulated increases. Multi-mycotoxin assays are being developed at a large number of locations and international inter-laboratory validation and comparability of results are needed to establish credibility of results across both scientific and regulatory boundaries. Common critical factors for analyses in academic, industrial, and governmental laboratories and developing countries were speed, expense, accuracy/reliability, data management, and, particularly in developing countries, operator training. Finally, forging a partnership between scientists and well-placed communications experts was recognized as an essential step to communicating risks while retaining overall confidence in the safety of the food supply and the integrity of the food production chain. This work was supported by H2020- MycoKey-(E.U.3.2-678781)

Fungi of the genus Penicillium are promising sources of bioactive substances. Fungal strains isolated from poorly characterized habitais are currently under active investigation as potential producers of biologically active compounds. Penicillium nordicum is mostly known by its ability to produce the mycotoxin ochratoxin A in several protein- and salt-rich food matrices like processed meat and cheese, but it can also produce an array of other secondary metabolites. In a previous study, strains of this species were found to produce, under specific growth conditions, one unidentified compound in apparently big amounts, without producing ochratoxin A. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the bioactive properties of this compound in terms of antioxidant, antimicrobial, cytotoxic and herbicidal properties. For that purpose, the fungus was grown on ham-based médium and the aqueous extract of the compound was used for further tests. The extract showed significant effects on seed germination as well as on root and shoot growth of tomato, lettuce, wheat and oat. The root growth inhibition ranged from 74% to 98%, ana the shoot growth was reduced in 23 to 88%, being tomato the most sensitive plant. The extract did not show any cytotoxic activity in non-tumor porcine liver primary culture cells and human tumor cell lines. The antibacterial effect on human clinicai isolates and antifungal effect on foodbome and environmental isolates was also not significant. Pestalotin was the predominant compound in the fungal extract, with questiomycin and 7- hydroxypestalotin also being found at lower concentrations, as detected by Liquid Chromatography- Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) based multi-metabolite method. The extract was considered as a potential bioherbicide without noticeable negative effects on human and animal cells and also on the environment. Further tests on herbicidal potential are now under development. The authors are grateful to the Foundatton for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) anü FEDER under ProgrammePT2020 for financiai suppoit to CIMO (UID/AGR/00690/2013) info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion