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New UC Riverside research makes it likely that proteins responsible for activating mosquito sperm can be shut down, preventing them from swimming to or fertilizing eggs.
The study could help control populations of Culex, the common house mosquito that transmits brain-swelling encephalitis and West Nile Virus.
“During mating, mosquitoes couple tail to tail, and the males transfer sperm into the female reproductive tract. It can be stored there awhile, but it still has to get from point A to point B to complete fertilization,” said Cathy Thaler, UCR cell biologist and the study’s first author.
Key to completing that journey are the specialized proteins secreted during ejaculation that activate the sperm flagella, or ‘tails,’ that power their movement.
“Without these proteins, the sperm cannot penetrate the eggs. They’ll remain immotile, and will eventually just degrade,” said Richard Cardullo, UCR biology professor and corresponding author of the new study.
The study, detailed in the journal PLOS ONE, details a full portrait of all the proteins in the insect’s sperm, allowing researchers to find the specific ones that maintain the quality of the sperm while they’re inactive, and that also activate them to swim.

To get this detailed information the research team worked with a team of graduate and undergraduate students who isolated as many as 200 male mosquitoes from a larger population. They then extracted enough sperm from the tiny reproductive tracts for mass spectrometry equipment to detect and identify the proteins.
Previously, the team determined that sperm need calcium upon entering a reproductive tract to power forward motion. “Now we can look in the completed protein profile we’ve created, find the calcium channel proteins, and design experiments to target these channels,” Cardullo said.
This kind of protein profiling offers a path toward controlling mosquitoes that is more environmentally friendly than other methods that can have unintended, toxic effects. “We’ve given up on spraying pesticides all over, because that kills everything, good insects and bad, and harms other animals,” Thaler said.
“Our work sets the foundation for a form of biological control, which most would agree is preferable,” Cardullo added.
The operative word is control, rather than eradicate. Even though immobilizing the sperm would be 100% effective for the treated mosquitoes, it is not possible or desirable to kill all mosquitoes. This technology would change the proportion of fertile to infertile males in a given mosquito population, rather than wiping them all out.

“Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals on Earth. But as much as people hate them, most ecologists would oppose a plan to completely eradicate them. They play an important role in the food chain for fish and other animals,” Cardullo said.
The team is hoping that information about sperm motility regulators in Culex will also apply to other species of mosquitoes. As climate change intensifies, a lot of other mosquitoes, such as those that carry malaria, are moving into the Northern Hemisphere.
Additionally, learning more about Culex sperm motility may have implications for improving fertility in humans.
Cardullo has long studied mammalian sperm, in the hopes of developing a male contraceptive. Just as important as preventing unwanted pregnancies, however, is the effort to help couples conceive. Human fertility rates have been falling for years, in part due to environmental factors. A better understanding of sperm could help overcome some of these factors.
“Many cells have flagella, or tails, including human respiratory cells as well as cells in our guts,” Cardullo said. “What we learn in one system, such as mosquitoes, can translate to others.”

A recent study makes it clear: Countries like Sweden that can link data from different areas — such as the labor market and health care — have a decisive advantage when it comes to setting targeted actions.
A research team from the Complexity Science Hub, together with scientists from Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands, investigated the extent to which mental and somatic illnesses influence integration into the labor market and whether there is a difference here between refugee and Swedish-born young adults. “In total, we analyzed data from 41,516 refugees and 207,729 Swedish-born people aged 20 to 25 from 2012 to 2016,” explains Jiaying Chen of the Complexity Science Hub and the Medical University of Vienna.
MULTIMORBIDITY IS A RISK FOR UNEMPLOYMENT
In both groups, multimorbidity (the simultaneous presence of several disorders) has a negative impact on labor market opportunities. Both mental and somatic disorders pose a risk that labor market integration will not succeed. However, this effect is more pronounced among young refugees. They have a higher risk of being and remaining unemployed than those born in Sweden. However, the strongest risk factor for long-term unemployment is refugee status per se, the study finds.
ALREADY MORE SEVERELY AFFECTED AT THE TIME OF DIAGNOSIS
In addition, refugees have a lower chance of receiving disability pensions. While 7.2 percent of young Swedes with mental disorders receive disability pension, only 5.5 percent of those who have had to flee benefit from it.

“This is a very robust result that has already been supported in many studies,” explains Peter Klimek of the Complexity Science Hub. “It suggests that refugees, who have often experienced massive trauma, are at risk of poorer access to the health care system. This implies that they often need to have a higher level of severity before a disease is diagnosed,” Klimek says.
Poorer labor market integration can therefore also be exacerbated by the fact that poorer health already exists at the time of diagnosis, he adds. “With targeted public health actions to specifically address this group and to sensitize treating physicians, Sweden could bring about an improvement in the situation,” explains Ellenor Mittendorfer-Rutz from the Swedish Karolinska Institutet, who coordinated the project.
THE TRUMP CARD: AN EXPANDED DATA LANDSCAPE
In other countries like Austria similar findings could not be obtained at all. Due to different social and health care systems, as well as different origin areas of refugees, the results of this study describe the situation in Sweden. However, they can only be transferred to other countries to a limited extent.
A good data infrastructure for research purposes is crucial. In Sweden, Finland and Denmark, there are already developed registry landscapes that allow, for example, de-identified information on health, labor market integration and refugee status to be centrally linked and securely evaluated. This enables researchers to analyze the interplay of these three factors.

TARGETED MEASURES
The findings support decision makers to take action to improve the situation where appropriate — such as implementing strategies to promote the inclusion and participation of young refugees in the labor market, reducing social disadvantage within the refugee population, and potentially improving the economic stability of these countries.
“In Austria, a similar study could not be conducted. On the one hand, there is a lack of complete data. For example, there is no diagnosis recording in the private practice sector. And on the other hand, data are pseudonymized differently in various areas, which is why they cannot be linked,” Klimek explains.
FIND OUT MORE:
The study “Association of common mental disorders and related multimorbidity with subsequent labor market marginalization among refugee and Swedish-born young adults” has been published in Frontier in Public Health.
ABOUT THE COMPLEXITY SCIENCE HUB
The mission of the Complexity Science Hub (CSH Vienna) is to host, educate, and inspire complex systems scientists dedicated to making sense of Big Data to boost science and society. Scientists at the Complexity Science Hub develop methods for the scientific, quantitative, and predictive understanding of complex systems.

The human immunodeficiency virus HIV-1 is able to infect various tissues in humans. Once inside the cells, the virus integrates its genome into the cellular genome and establishes persistent infections. The role of the structure and organisation of the host genome in HIV-1 infection is not well understood. Using a cell culture model based on brain immune microglia cells, an international research team led by scientists from Heidelberg University Hospital and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) now defined the insertion patterns of HIV-1 in the genome of microglia cells.
An infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is in 99,9% of cases still an incurable disease. This is because the virus “sleeps” for a long time in the genome of infected cells, making it invisible and inaccessible to the immune system and antiviral drugs. The pathways that HIV-1 takes to remain hidden in the host cell genome have been studied primarily in blood CD4+ T cells — the main target cells of the virus. However, HIV-1 is capable of infecting other immune cells in different organs, where it establishes stable reservoirs. One such viral sanctuary is the brain, where the virus infects mostly microglia immune cells, often causing neuroinflammation and symptoms of HIV-1 associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND).
Questions related to HIV-1 infection and replication in the brain have been very difficult to resolve because studies in patients are limited in their ability to monitor the virus in the brain. An international team led by Dr Marina Lusic from Heidelberg University Hospital and the DZIF now succeeded in developing HIV-1-infection models in human microglia cell cultures. Establishment of the models allowed for the first time to investigate the insertion of the HIV-1 genome in that of microglia cells. Genomic insertion results in the silencing of the viral genome, leading to the so-called “sleeping virus” phenotype.
The researchers, who recently published their findings in the scientific journal Cell Reports, used the microglia cell models to determine HIV-1 integration sites and associate them with structural and regulatory elements of the chromatin.
“Modelling HIV-1-infections of the brain immune cells using the microglia cell cultures, we discovered a stronger correlation between a cellular chromatin factor and the sleeping virus phenotype,” says the paper’s first author Mona Rheinberger. “This protein, called CTCF, is one of the most important architectural proteins of the cellular genome, involved in chromatin folding and packaging inside the cells. Our findings indicate that CTCF is shaping the HIV-1 genomic insertion profiles in microglia, thus contributing to the latent infection state.”
“These studies in cell culture models are extremely important to understand how the virus can be targeted in different parts of the body, where it can remain hidden or cause neurological disorders even under current therapeutic regimens,” Dr Lusic concludes.

“Miniature shredders” are at work in each cell, disassembling and recycling cell components that are defective or no longer required. The exact structure of these shredders differs from cell type to cell type, a study by the University of Bonn now shows. For example, cancer cells have a special variant that can supply them particularly effectively with building blocks for their energy metabolism. The results were published online in advance. The final version has now been published in the journal “Molecular & Cellular Proteomics.”
Lysosomes are a central part of the cell’s waste disposal system. The tiny bubbles, surrounded by a fat-like membrane, function like a miniature recycling factory: They break down defective cell components, harmful molecules, or proteins that are no longer needed into their individual parts. They then make these available to the cell again. “The process is extremely important,” stresses Dr. Dominic Winter of the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University Hospital Bonn. “If it doesn’t work properly, diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s can result.”
Lysosomes have a very complex structure. Several hundred proteins are now known to play a role in their function. There could even be significantly more: When lysosomes are isolated from cells and their composition is analyzed with special equipment, researchers often find more than 5,000 different cellular proteins. “However, it’s impossible to say how many of them are actually important for the lysosomes’ work,” Winter says. “They can also be molecules that are in the process of being broken down in them. Others may be attached to their membrane from the outside, without performing any task. And there’s usually a lot of unwanted bycatch when isolating the lysosomes, too.”
100 new potential lysosomal proteins discovered
The researchers have developed a method that allows them to identify a large proportion of these uninvolved molecules. Of the 5,000 proteins typically found using conventional methods, this left around 1,000. “We performed this step for six very different cell types, including, for instance, liver cells and cancer cells,” the researcher explains. “Several hundred of these 1,000 proteins were present in almost all lysosomes — no matter which tissue they originated from. These included about 100 new lysosomal proteins in addition to those already known. We believe it is likely that these also play an important role in the function of the nano-shredders.”
What differed from cell type to cell type was the quantity in which each of these proteins was present. “The lysosomes of liver cells, for example, are packed to the brim with degradation enzymes,” says Winter, who is also a member of the Transdisciplinary Research Area “Life & Health” at the University of Bonn. “And that makes sense — an important function of the liver is to break down different molecules. In contrast, in the cancer cells we studied, the lysosomes contained a lot of transporter proteins.”
Tumors require a lot of energy for their growth; at the same time, they are often poorly supplied with blood. They therefore “digest” the surrounding tissue and use the breakdown products to obtain energy. Digestion takes place in the lysosomes, which then have to transport the broken-down molecules back into the cell — hence the many transporters. This means that these nano-shredders differ according to the requirements of the tissue in which they are found. “In each of the six cell types we studied, the lysosomes have a very specific protein makeup,” Winter points out. “To my knowledge, we are the first research group that has been able to show that.”
Protein fingerprint provides clues to disease mechanisms
On the one hand, the results are particularly interesting for basic research. On the other hand, they also shed new light on the role of lysosomes in certain diseases. There are more than 1,600 studies worldwide on a wide variety of disorders suggesting the involvement of lysosomal proteins. For example, it has been known for some time that the lysosomes of very specific nerve cells are altered in Parkinson’s disease. “We can now take a kind of protein fingerprint of these lysosomes and compare it to that of healthy individuals,” Winter explains. “This could provide clues to how the cellular shredder function is altered in affected individuals and why that causes neurological problems.” In the long term, this could also help find new approaches for drugs.
Although the study was conducted at the University Hospital Bonn, it is ultimately also a multinational project: The three lead authors are from three different countries — DAAD scholarship holder Dr. Fatema Akter from Bangladesh, her colleague Srigayatri Ponnaiyan from India, and doctoral student Sara Bonini from Italy.

The androgen receptor is a key transcriptional factor for the proper sex development — specially in males — and the physiological balance of all the tissues that express this receptor. The androgen receptor is involved in several pathologies and syndromes, such as the spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy or androgen insensitivity syndrome, among others, for which there is no specific treatment. Regarded as the main initial and progression factor in prostate cancer — the second most common malignant disease in men in industrialized countries — , this receptor has been, for decades, the main therapeutical target for the treatment against this disease.
Now, a study published in the journal Science Advances describes the structural and functional effects of mutations on the androgen receptor, as well as how these changes lead to the development of prostate cancer. The study is led by lecturer Eva Estébanez-Perpiñá, from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biomedicine of the Faculty of Biology and from the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Barcelona (IBUB) — with headquarters at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB) — , in collaboration with the experts Pablo Fuentes-Prior, former head of a research group at the Research Institute of Sant Pau (IBB Sant Pau), and Álvaro Aytés, from the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) and the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO).
The study, whose first coauthors are Andrea Alegre and Alba Jiménez (UB-IBUB) and Adrián Martínez (ICO and IDIBELL), includes the participation of the team led by lecturer Jaime Rubio Martínez, from the Faculty of Chemistry and the UB Institute of Theoretical and Computational Chemistry (IQTC), and groups from CSIC and the National Institute of Health and MedicalResearch in France (INSERM).
Point mutations in the androgen receptor
The human androgen receptor is a key protein in the development and functioning of the prostate in response to male hormones, such as testosterone. Point mutations in the androgen receptor — specifically, one aminoacid changing for another — are one of the main mechanisms than can lead to structural and functional alterations in the receptor, which result in the development of diseases.
The results of the study show that the analysed mutations affect several functional regions of the union domain of the androgen receptor to testosterone. In particular, these are mutations that alter a region of the receptor which is the target for posttranscriptional modifications (that is, modifications in the protein once this is produced).
This type of chemical alterations affect specific amino acids of the androgen receptor and are executed by regulating proteins which are decisive for the proper functioning of the receptor. If this receptor’s regulation pathway is altered — such as the case of the presence of mutations described by the team — , its function is deregulated and it can be dysfunctional and cause pathologies.
“In our study, we experimentally checked that these mutations deregulate a specific mutation, known as arginine methylation, which is one of the posttranscriptional modifications, due to the structural changes these alterations produce in a functional area of the receptor. Also, we could observe that the deregulation of the androgen receptor methylation involves relevant changes in its function within the cell,” the team concludes.

Steps were taken in Canada to reduce the use of Bisphenol A (BPA), a toxic chemical linked to prostate and breast cancer, commonly found in plastics, the lining of food cans, water bottles, and paper receipts. But in many cases, it has been replaced with similar hormone disrupting chemicals, like Bisphenol S (BPS). A new study from McGill University shows that every day Canadians are exposed to BPS in the fresh foods they eat, as chemicals migrate from labels on the packaging materials into the food.
“BPA is a chemical that can interfere with hormones in the human body and cause adverse health outcomes, including cancers, diabetes, and damage to fertility and the development of infants. Now there is growing evidence that BPS may have similar health effects,” says Stéphane Bayen, an Associate Professor in the Department of Food Science and Agricultural Chemistry. “Our study provides evidence, for the first time, that BPS and alternative chemicals found in food labels migrate through packaging materials into the food people eat,” he explains.
The researchers examined an assortment of packaged fresh food sold in Canada such as meats, cheeses, vegetables, and bakery products. They also compared fish bought from stores in Canada and the United States, and the differences between food wrapped with plastic cling wrap films with or without food labels. They found relatively high concentrations of BPS in thermal food labels, like price tags and stickers, where heat is used to print bar codes or unit prices. In contrast, they found little to no BPS in plastic wrapper films, pads, and trays.
While Canada does not currently regulate BPS, the researchers show that the amount of BPS found in the foods studied significantly exceeded the European Union limit, which regulates the permitted amount of substances released from packaging materials in contact with food.
“Considering the number of packaged food items sold with thermal labels, the actual dietary intake of BPS and other chemicals is likely to be high,” says Bayen. The study suggests a more thorough risk assessment of BPS and its ability to migrate into food from packaging is needed to help develop regulatory guidelines in the food sector.

While research has long established disparities in health outcomes among individuals living with sickle cell disease (SCD), few studies have quantified these gaps. A new study published in Blood Advances finds that the average life expectancy of publicly insured patients living with SCD is roughly 52.6 years. In contrast, the CDC reports that the average life expectancy in the United States is 73.5 years for men and 79.3 years for women, demonstrating the considerable burden SCD can have on affected populations.
Investigators also found that those insured by Medicare for disabilities or end-stage renal disease and those dually insured by Medicare and Medicaid had worse survival outcomes among the populations studied.
SCD is the most common inherited red blood cell disorder in the United States, affecting an estimated 100,000 people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), SCD affects one out of every 365 Black or African American births and one out of every 16,300 Hispanic American births.
“Our study highlights that there is a persistent life expectancy gap among the individuals with sickle cell disease, even though they are covered by public insurance,” explained lead study author, Dr. Boshen Jiao, PhD, MPH, a researcher in the Comparative Health Outcomes, Policy & Economics (CHOICE) Institute on the Department of Pharmacy at the University of Washington. “The clinical community has known that SCD can be an extremely burdensome condition, however, this study puts numbers behind that burden using real patient data.”
Researchers analyzed data from Medicaid Analytic eXtract (MAX) files and Medicare Part A and B Fee-for-Service claims covering enrollees from 2008 to 2016. The data included demographic information, insurance enrollment status, and administrative claims for all individuals with SCD covered by Medicaid or Medicare in all 50 states.
The study included 94,616 individuals with SCD at an average age of 26.6 years across insurance types. Authors reported that 5% of participants had Medicare Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund (OASI), 4% had Medicare for disability or end-stage renal disease coverage, 48% had Medicaid, and 43% were dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. Of the study population, 74% were Black. Investigators confirmed death dates using death certificates provided by the National Death Index.
Researchers found that the average life expectancy for publicly insured individuals with SCD was 52.6 years, with male life expectancy at birth (49.3 years) being significantly lower than that of females at birth (55 years). However, the study also found that those insured by Medicare for disabilities or end-stage renal disease and those dually insured by Medicare and Medicaid had significantly worse survival outcomes among the populations studied, with an average lifespan of 51.1 years at birth.
Dr. Jiao highlighted that the study demonstrates a persistent life expectancy gap among individuals with SCD, even though they are covered by public insurance. Differences in life expectancies of individuals with SCD across different public insurances most likely reflect the differential burden of comorbidities. However more work is needed to explore these disparities as well as causes of death, which were not available in the National Death Index data linked to CMS claims.
Several care transforming medical interventions for SCD have arisen over the last few decades, such as newborn screening, pneumococcal vaccination, and prophylactic antibiotics, which have dramatically improved the life expectancy of children diagnosed with SCD. Nevertheless, this data illustrates the vast lifespan disparities that persist for those living with SCD.
Dr. Jiao also commented on the high cost of gene therapies for sickle cell disease, a care transforming option on the horizon that is estimated to potentially cost millions of dollars. He emphasized the importance of understanding the long-term effects and value of these therapies to justify their high prices. The study underscores the burden of SCD and its disproportionate impact on Black patients, highlighting the urgent need for a cure.
“While there is no gene therapy for sickle cell disease on the market yet, gene therapies have come out for other diseases, like beta thalassemia, and they cost a lot of money,” said Dr. Jiao. “There is substantial optimism that these therapies are valuable to the patients. But because of the high price tag, it becomes even more important that we understand that we are getting enough benefit from these therapies, lifelong, long term, that will justify these high prices.”

Cancer, which affects millions every year, requires proteins to spread through the body. In a new strategy to beat the wide-ranging disease, scientists are sabotaging its protein factories.
In a new forum paper published in Trends in Biology, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte encapsulated the young field of nucleolar DNA damage response (DDR) pathways. The review highlights six mechanisms by which cells repair DNA damage, including one which was published five months ago in Nucleic Acids Research by the same authors. By attacking these mechanisms, future applied researchers will be able to trip up cancer’s reproduction and growth.
“The whole purpose of the Trends paper is to bring attention to scientists in the field and trigger their research,” says Shan Yan, the main author. “I did not realize the significance of this field, which is only fifteen years old, until a couple of years ago.”
In a groundbreaking 2007 paper published in Nature, researchers began the field by unveiling the first pathway within the nucleolus, an area within an organelle, or room, within the cell. Inside the nucleolus, different molecules help copy DNA, which contains the plans for cells. Different factors can cause glitches, such as strand breaks, in the copies. These researchers found a way to help heal glitches when copying ribosomal DNA, or the plans for the protein factories of the cell.
By studying these mechanisms, researchers can target cancer, which relies on ribosomal DNA to make the proteins they need to attack the human body. For instance, a Phase I clinical trial is already underway for a drug that targets the second mechanism listed in the paper — if the cancer cells can’t heal glitches, then they can’t make new factories and hence can’t make new proteins.
While the first four mechanisms take place inside the nucleolus, which is in a room cordoned off within the watery cell, the last two mechanisms use a new cellular process which won the 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. In the process, called liquid-liquid phase transition, proteins pop up their own liquid ‘tents’ to do their work instead of staying inside a room.
Before working on the nucleolar DDR, Yan researched a protein called APE1. When he discovered that APE1 could locate the nucleolus within a cell and could also pop up these liquid tents to do work, it launched his investigation into these pathways and ultimately to the review paper.
“What’s new is that APE1 acts like a GPS or a first responder,” Yan said. “It says there’s a problem here, we need a police car, a medic, and others to come and be concentrated here.”
Basic researchers like Yan will continue to better define these mechanisms, while more applied scientists can then use those mechanisms as points of attack in the war on cancer.
“This is an exciting and emerging area,” Yan said. “By testing this idea, and if the clinical trial is successful, then these mechanisms will be tickets into new clinical trials and treatments.”

Published20 hours agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesBy Michelle RobertsDigital health editorGonorrhoea cases in England have resurged since the easing of Covid restrictions, health officials are warning people who are sexually active. Condoms can stop the spread of this and other sexually transmitted infections. Provisional data shows diagnoses in the first nine months of 2022 hit 56,327 – 21% higher than for the same 2019 period.People should practise safe sex and get tested regularly if having sex with new or casual partners, experts say. Typical symptoms of gonorrhoea include a thick green or yellow discharge from the vagina or penis. But some people will have no symptoms, especially for infections in the throat, vagina or rectum. Experts say people should practise safe sex and get tested regularly if they are having sex with new or casual partners.Testing is simple, free and discreet, they advise.What is gonorrhoea?The disease is caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae.The infection is spread by unprotected vaginal, oral and anal sex.Symptoms can include a thick green or yellow discharge from sexual organs, pain when urinating and bleeding between periods. However, vaginal and rectal infections often have no symptoms. An untreated infection can lead to infertility, pelvic inflammatory disease and can be passed on to a child during pregnancy.Dr Claire Dewsnap, from the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV, said: “The rise in gonorrhoea cases provides an important reminder of the importance of testing for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and wearing a condom every time you have sex. “By getting tested at least once a year, regardless of whether you’re showing symptoms, you can help minimise the risk of catching or passing on STIs when having sex. “Delaying access to the right care and treatment also risks developing longer term problems which can be more difficult to address. If you are concerned about STI transmission, sexual health clinics are on hand to help.”How to get testedThere are several different places you can go to be tested for gonorrhoea:a sexual health clinic (sometimes also called a GUM clinic)your GP surgerya contraceptive and young people’s clinica private clinicIt is possible to buy a gonorrhoea test from a pharmacy to do yourself at home. However, these tests vary in accuracy, so it is recommended that you go to your local sexual health service.All tests are free through the NHS, but you will have to pay if you go to a private clinic.Dr Katy Sinka, head of the STI section at UK Health Security Agency, reminded people: “You can get free condoms at your local sexual health clinic and if you’re under 25, you can also get them online.”Scotland has seen a similar rise in gonorrhoea cases.Experts are also concerned that gonorrhoea has been developing resistance to certain antibiotic treatments, with some cases of so-called “super-gonorrhoea” being seen in recent years around the world. These remain rare at the moment. More on this storySurge in gonorrhoea cases recorded across Scotland2 days ago’Deep concern’ at super-gonorrhoea spread9 January 2019Related Internet LinksNHS advice on gonorrhoeaThe BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.

Published22 minutes agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesBy Thomas MackintoshBBC NewsGlobal cocaine production has reached record levels as demand rebounds following Covid lockdowns, a new report has found.The UN Office on Drugs and Crime said coca cultivation rose by 35% between 2021 and 2022 to record levels.Findings suggest new hubs for trafficking have emerged in West and Central Africa. The report also said traffickers were using international postal services more often to get drugs to consumers.Europe and North America are the largest markets for cocaine, followed by South and Central America and the Caribbean.While the report said the markets in Africa and Asia were “still limited”, the UN’s Ghada Waly said the potential for the market to expand there was a dangerous reality.The Global Report on Cocaine said the production increase was the result of an expansion in the cultivation of coca bush, as well as improvements in converting coca into powdered cocaine. It says: “Seizure data suggest that the role of Africa, especially West and Central Africa, as a transit zone for cocaine on its way to markets in Europe has picked up substantially since 2019. “Both the total quantity seized in Africa and the number of large seizures appear to have reached record levels during 2021.”The report says the outbreak of Covid-19 had a “disruptive” effect on drug markets as international travel was severely curtailed.Demand for cocaine slumped as night clubs and bars were shut during the pandemic lockdowns.”However, the most recent data suggests this slump has had little impact on longer-term trends,” the report says. “The global supply of cocaine is at record levels.”In the UK, the report says there has been a “significant increase” in seizures of cocaine in the “fast parcel and postal modes”.Interceptions by law enforcement have also been on the rise – at a higher speed than production, the report outlines.Other key findings include: Colombia still dominates trafficking routes although paths to Europe have evolvedConsumption in Australia peaked in the middle of 2020, dropped by 50% the following year and picked up “moderately” in the last few months of 2021Mexican and Balkan criminal groups have moved closer to the centre of production to gain access to suppliesThe use of crack cocaine is on the upward trend in several western European countries including the UK, Belgium, France and SpainIn Ukraine, the market had been expanding, but since Russia’s invasion last February the demand has been disrupted drasticallyThis video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.More on this storyPatients face losing noses due to cocaine – medics6 days ago’My online cocaine delivery arrives in 19 minutes’ Video, 00:04:51’My online cocaine delivery arrives in 19 minutes’16 December 20224:51