Impact of the Lubrizol factory fire in Rouen on coronary events: A retrospective study from the France PCI registry

BACKGROUND

On 26 September 2019, an industrial fire occurred in the Lubrizol factory in Rouen (France), exposing the population to the inhalation of many volatile toxic agents secondary to combustion.

AIM

To assess the impact of the Lubrizol factory fire on the incidence of coronary artery events.

METHODS

All coronary angiograms performed in Rouen (exposed) and Le Havre (unexposed) from May 2019 to December 2019 were extracted from the prospective France Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (France PCI) registry. To study the impact of the fire on coronary events, an interrupted time series analysis was performed in Rouen, with adjustment on Le Havre in an autoregressive moving average (ARMA)(1,1) model with the precision of 1 week. The primary outcome was the incidence of acute coronary syndrome, and the secondary outcome was the incidence of ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction.

RESULTS

The mean number of acute coronary syndromes per week in the exposed zone (Rouen) increased non-significantly from 37.5±9.4 before the fire to 43.2±6.2 after the fire, for an estimated effect of +5.5 (95% confidence interval -0.7 to 11.8; P=0.09) events per week. In municipalities exposed to the plume of smoke (subgroup of Rouen), the mean number of acute coronary syndromes increased non-significantly from 7.3±2.8 before the fire to 8.7±3.6 after the fire, for an estimated effect of +1.0 (95% confidence interval -2.0 to 4.0; P=0.51) events per week. The results were similar when taking into account only ST-segment elevation myocardial infarctions or all coronary events.

CONCLUSIONS

Our study did not find a significant effect of the Lubrizol factory fire on the incidence of acute coronary syndrome. Further studies are needed to investigate the impact of industrial accidents on air pollution and coronary events.

Tools and methods for detecting and characterizing giardia, cryptosporidium, and toxoplasma parasites in marine mollusks

Foodborne infections are of public health importance and deeply impact the global economy. Consumption of bivalve mollusks generates risk for humans because these filtering aquatic invertebrates often concentrate microbial pathogens from their environment. Among them, Giardia, Cryptosporidium, and Toxoplasma are major parasites of humans and animals that may retain their infectivity in raw or undercooked mollusks. This review aims to detail current and future tools and methods for ascertaining the load and potential infectivity of these parasites in marine bivalve mollusks, including sampling strategies, parasite extraction procedures, and their characterization by using microscopy and/or molecular techniques. Method standardization should lead to better risk assessment of mollusks as a source of these major environmental parasitic pathogens and to the development of safety regulations, similar to those existing for bacterial and viral pathogens encountered in the same mollusk species.

Protozoa interaction with aquatic invertebrate: interest for watercourses biomonitoring

Toxoplasma gondii, Cryptosporidium parvum, and Giardia duodenalis are human waterborne protozoa. These worldwide parasites had been detected in various watercourses as recreational, surface, drinking, river, and seawater. As of today, water protozoa detection was based on large water filtration and on sample concentration. Another tool like aquatic invertebrate parasitism could be used for sanitary and environmental biomonitoring. In fact, organisms like filter feeders could already filtrate and concentrate protozoa directly in their tissues in proportion to ambient concentration. So molluscan shellfish can be used as a bioindicator of protozoa contamination level in a site since they were sedentary. Nevertheless, only a few researches had focused on nonspecific parasitism like protozoa infection on aquatic invertebrates. Objectives of this review are twofold: Firstly, an overview of protozoa in worldwide water was presented. Secondly, current knowledge of protozoa parasitism on aquatic invertebrates was detailed and the lack of data of their biological impact was pointed out.