The toxicity and adverse effects of selected drugs in animals – overview

A narrative review of veterinary pharmacovigilance situations and prospects in East African countries

Background

Veterinary pharmaceuticals must be safe and effective for treating and preventing diseases in animal sectors. Strict adherence to regulations at every stage of production, storage, and administration is necessary as the global sector grows in order to lower the possibility of adverse veterinary drug events. Strong pharmacovigilance regulatory systems are critical in monitoring and managing safety concerns related with veterinary pharmaceuticals.

Objective

This review aimed to investigate the implementation of veterinary pharmacovigilance, collaborative initiatives, and reporting practices within the veterinary sector across East African countries.

Methods

A thorough search was performed using online platforms such as Google Scholar, PubMed, the Web of Sciences, and regulatory Web sites. The search strategies relied heavily on selecting relevant published findings related to veterinary pharmacovigilance status, veterinary adverse drug event reporting practice, and collaborative efforts in veterinary pharmaceutical sectors within the East African landscape. This article search approach confirmed the inclusion state of veterinary pharmacovigilance and associated collaborative initiatives in the region.

Results

In comparison to more developed regions, the review indicated that the veterinary pharmacovigilance system in East African countries was still in its early state. A strong legislative foundation and a large commitment from the veterinary profession are needed to establish a nationwide veterinary pharmacovigilance system. The review reveals a significant lack of consistency in the infrastructure of veterinary pharmacovigilance among the countries of East Africa. Tanzania, Kenya, and Ethiopia have some institutional processes for veterinary pharmaceutical safety, but they lack thorough documentation, which suggests that this systems still require improvement. The analysis emphasizes how inadequate the reporting systems are for adverse veterinary medication events in the majority of East African nations. Given the challenges East Africa faces, customized strategies are required to guarantee the safety and oversight of veterinary medications and improve veterinary pharmacovigilance. For systems to be more effective, veterinary pharmaceutical legal frameworks must be strengthened and stakeholder collaboration must be improved. Stakeholders include legislators, law enforcement, customs officials, regulatory organizations, scientists, pharmaceutical businesses, veterinarians, farmers, and the general public.

Conclusion

A multidisciplinary strategy is needed to solve current gaps in veterinary pharmacovigilance and improve overall veterinary drug safety in East Africa. It is feasible to create more reliable methods for tracking and guaranteeing the safety of veterinary medications by combining the efforts of numerous stakeholders, including as legislators, regulatory agencies, veterinary practitioners, and the general public.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in the era of the Covid-19 pandemic in the context of the human and the environment

From 2019, life in the world has mainly been determined by successive waves of the COVID-19 epidemic. During this time, the virus structure, action, short- and long-term effects of the infection were discovered, and treatments were developed. This epidemic undoubtedly affected people's lives, but increasing attention is also being paid to the effects of the epidemic on the environment. Following PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) guidelines, a global scoping review of peer-reviewed information has been conducted on the use of over-the-counter non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in the treatment of symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infections and their positive and negative effects on the human body, the effects of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) on aquatic organisms, and their adverse effects on non-target organisms. The literature from 1998 to 2021 was analysed using the Scopus®, Web of Science™ (WoS) and Google Scholar databases. As non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs place a heavy burden on the environment, all reports of the presence of these drugs in the environment during the pandemic period have been thoroughly analysed. Of the 70 peer-reviewed records within the scope, only 14% (n = 10) focussed on the analysis of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs concentrations in wastewater and surface waters during the pandemic period. The percentage of these works indicates that it is still an open topic, and this issue should be supplemented with further reports in which the results obtained during the pandemic, which has been going on for several years, will be published. The authors hope this review will inspire scientists to investigate the problem of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in the environment to protect them for the next generation.

Os agrotóxicos no contexto da Saúde Única

RESUMO A industrialização da agricultura e da pecuária, além de gerar um ambiente propício à disseminação de agentes infecciosos, é responsável pelo uso generalizado de diversas substâncias tóxicas que afetam a saúde humana, animal e ambiental. O objetivo deste estudo foi promover a reflexão sobre o uso de agrotóxicos e medicamentos veterinários como elementos de debate na construção da Saúde Única. Para isso, foi realizada uma revisão exploratória literária de artigos, livros e documentos oficiais disponíveis em plataformas de banco de dados. A discussão inclui as problemáticas do uso de substâncias tóxicas em plantas e animais. Aborda, também, como os resíduos oriundos de sua utilização impactam a qualidade de alimentos, ar, solo, água com consequências à saúde humana. Embora essa discussão seja escassa na temática de Saúde Única, é fundamental que, além da participação da sociedade civil organizada, gestores públicos assegurem, por meio de políticas públicas, maior segurança e controle na utilização de substâncias tóxicas na agricultura e na pecuária.

Effect of growing forage legumes on the migration and survival in the pasture of gastrointestinal nematodes of sheep

In order to identify types of forage that inhibit pasture contamination, an evaluation was performed of the effect of the forage legumes Trifolium repens (white clover), Trifolium pratense (red clover) and Lotus corniculatus (bird's-foot-trefoil) on the survival and migration of infective larvae (L3) of gastrointestinal nematodes (GIN) of sheep. An experimental area of 441 m2 was divided into four blocks, subdivided into areas of 1.20 × 1.20 in which the three forage legumes were separately overseeded. After growth of the forage in each subdivision, experimental units were established that were later artificially contaminated with sheep faeces containing GIN eggs. Between October and December 2018, pasture, faecal and soil samples were collected on four occasions during weeks 1, 2, 4 and 8 after the deposition of faeces. In week 6, the forage legumes in all the experimental units were mown to simulate grazing. The number of L3 was quantified to determine their survival in the pasture, faeces and soil. In addition, the horizontal migration of L3 was measured at two distances from the faecal pellets (10 and 30 cm), as well as their vertical migration at two heights of the plant stems, that is, lower half and upper half. Larvae vertical migration was affected by the forage species (P < 0.001), in that bird's-foot-trefoil contained fewer larvae in the upper stratum. Bird's-foot-trefoil restricted the migration of L3 to the upper stratum of the plant, which could potentially decrease the risk of infection by intestinal nematodes in grazing sheep.

Elucidating the Splitting Behavior of Tablets to Optimize the Pharmacotherapy in Veterinary Medicine

It is well known that the splitting of tablets can bring serious risks to the health of the treated animals, e.g., the possible adverse reactions caused by overdoses of fenbendazole or aspirin. In this regard, this work aimed to evaluate, for the first time, the splitting behavior of commercial veterinary tablets and identifying the technological aspects that interfere in this process. Tablets were cut in halves using a tablet splitter and were analyzed regarding mass variation, mass loss, friability, and hardness. Microstructural and morphological evaluations were also performed. For most of the tablets, organic flavor additives provided more uniformity and cohesive matrix, which preserved its hardness after the cut and led to subdivision results within acceptable limits for mass measurements and friability. Apart from the microstructure, the most critical technological aspect for a correct splitting performance in such tablets was the presence of a score. Thus, the results presented here allow us to guide the manufacturing of veterinary drug products in order to produce tablets more adapted to the splitting process.

Evaluation of histophysiological alterations associated with ketoprofen administration in albino NMRI mice

The aim of this study was to investigate the changes caused by the administration of ketoprofen to albino NMRI mice on some hematological, biochemical, and structural parameters. For this purpose, the mice were divided into two lots: a control batch and an experimental batch to which ketoprofen was administered subcutaneously at a dose of 10 mg/kg body weight per day for 7 days. A decrease in erythrocyte number and hemoglobin was observed altogether with the increase in white blood cells. Blood biochemistry indicates increased blood glucose, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels. Enzyme values (AST, ALT, and ALP) show a significant increase. Hepatic pathology reveals the enlargement of sinusoidal capillaries, the presence of leukocyte infiltrates associated with necrosis zones.

Build-up of a continuous flow pre-coated dynamic membrane filter to treat diluted textile wastewater and identify its dynamic membrane fouling

This research built up a continuous dynamic flow filter membrane to treat diluted textile wastewater and basically investigated dynamic membrane fouling mechanism. By pre-depositing particles activated carbon (PAC) on membrane support material (MSM), a thin layer was formed on its surface, which showed excellent results in removing organic pollutants from diluted textile wastewater. Experimental data were regressed by the Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, Dubinin-Radushkevich (D-R) and Sips isotherm models. The three two-parameter isotherms (Temkin, D-R and Freundlich) were the models that best fitted, with respectively 0.977, 0.975 and 0.973 regression coefficients. D-R model has registered the maximum calculated adsorption capacity Q_{md, cal.} = 45.499 mg/g and the mean energy which was required to adsorb 1 mol of MB dye by the DM layer E = 4.249 kJ/mol; indicating the energy distribution onto heterogeneous surface of a physical adsorption process. Furthermore, kinetic models results showed that MB adsorption onto PAC at different initial concentrations follows the pseudo-second order. The obtained results also indicated that a flexible DM layer with different thickness can be formed from different amount of PAC pre-deposited on MSMs, which demonstrated that it was convenient to adjust the required DM thickness to filtrate a known initial concentration for >99% organic pollutants removal efficiency rate. However, DM fouling occurred on small pores MSMs; which resulted in an increase of the filtration pressure what have affected the filtration performance. PAC and MSMs surface morphology and texture structure, before and after filtration, were visualized respectively by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM), Fourier Transform Infra-Red and Attenuated Total Reflectance (FTIR/ATR). From these experimental results, a sustainable flux (>6.85 × 10^-5 m/s) was established to discriminate no fouling from fouling conditions based on flux and TMP trends variance.

Interactions between erythromycin, flunixin meglumine, levamisole and plant secondary metabolites towards bovine gastrointestinal motility-in vitro study

Continued ingestion of plant secondary metabolites by ruminants can provoke pharmacological interactions with pharmaceutical agents used in animals. As some drugs and phytocompounds affect smooth muscle activity, the aim of this study was to verify the possible interaction between selected pharmaceutical agents and plant secondary metabolites towards bovine gastrointestinal motility. The interactions between phytocompounds-apigenin, quercetin, hederagenin, medicagenic acid-and medicines-erythromycin, flunixin meglumine and levamisole-were evaluated on bovine isolated abomasal and duodenal specimens obtained from routinely slaughtered cows. The obtained results confirmed the contractile effect of all three drugs used solely. Hederagenin and medicagenic acid (0.001 μM) enhanced the contractile effect of levamisole. Hederagenin additionally increased the impact of erythromycin. Both saponins (100 μM) showed synergistic effects with all tested pharmaceuticals. Apigenin and quercetin (0.001 μM) intensified the contractile response induced by erythromycin and levamisole. Moreover, both flavonoids (100 μM) showed an antagonistic interaction with all tested drugs which in that situation were devoid of the prokinetic effect. To conclude, plant metabolic metabolites such as saponins and flavonoids are potent modifiers of the effect of drugs towards gut motility. The synergy observed between phytocompounds and selected medicines can be beneficial in the treatment of cows with hypomotility disorders.

A novel two-dimensional liquid chromatographic system for the online toxicity prediction of pharmaceuticals and related substances

In this study, a novel two-dimensional liquid chromatographic (2D-LC) system was developed for simultaneous separation and toxicity prediction of pharmaceutical and its related substances. A conventional ODS column was used on the 1st-D to separate the sample; while, bio-partitioning micellar chromatography served as the 2nd-D to predict toxicity of the components. The established system was tested for the toxicity of ibuprofen and its impurities with known toxicity. With only one injection, ibuprofen and its impurities were separated on the 1st-D; and LC50 values of individual impurity were obtained based on the quantitative retention-activity relationships, which agreed well with the reported data. Furthermore, LC50 values of photolysis transformation products (TPs) of carprofen, ketoprofen and diclofenac acid (as unknown compounds) were screened in this 2D-LC system, which could be an indicator of the toxicity of these TPs and was meaningful for the environmental monitoring and drinking water treatment. The established 2D-LC system was cost-effective, time-saving and reliable, and was promising for fast online screening of toxicity of known and unknown analytes in the complex sample in a single step. It may find applications in environment, pharmaceutical and food, etc.

Poisoning of dogs and cats by drugs intended for human use

One of the main causes of poisoning of small animals is exposure to drugs intended for human use. Poisoning may result from misuse by pet owners, off-label use of medicines or, more frequently, accidental ingestion of drugs that are improperly stored. This review focuses on classes of drugs intended for human use that are most commonly involved in the poisoning of small animals and provides an overview of poisoning episodes reported in the literature. To perform this review a comprehensive search of public databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar) using key search terms was conducted. Additionally, relevant textbooks and reference lists of articles pertaining to the topic were reviewed to locate additional related articles. Most published information on small animal poisoning by drugs intended for human use was from animal and human poison control centres or from single case reports. The dog was the species most frequently poisoned. The major drugs involved included analgesics (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), antihistamines (H1-antihistamines), cardiovascular drugs (calcium channel blockers), central nervous system drugs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, baclofen, benzodiazepines and zolpidem), gastrointestinal drugs (loperamide), nutritional supplements (vitamin D and iron salts) and respiratory drugs (β2-adrenergic receptor agonists).