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After 6 months of breast-feeding, no child out of the 13 had been infected with HIV and all had good psychomotor and growth development. Our results suggest that EFV may be an alternative to nevirapine (NVP) during the third trimester of pregnancy and during the breast-feeding period. Further studies on larger groups of newborns will be necessary to get a better understanding of possible prophylactic protection of the newborns by highly active antiretroviral therapy with EFV given to the mothers.

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This study presents the development of a worldwide inter-laboratory testing scheme for the analysis of seven illicit drug residues in different matrices (standard solutions, tap-and wastewater). By repeating this exercise for six years with participation of 37 laboratories from 25 countries, the testing scheme was substantially improved based on experiences gained across the years (e.g. matrix type, sample conditions, spiking levels). From the exercises, (pre-)analytical issues (e.g. pH adjustment, filtration) were revealed for some analytes which resulted in formulation of best-practice protocols, both for inter-laboratory setup and analytical procedures. The results illustrate the effectiveness of the inter-laboratory testing scheme in assessing laboratory performance in the framework of illicit drug analysis in wastewater. The exercise proved that measurements of laboratories were of high quality (> 80% satisfactory results for 6 out of 7 analytes) and that analytical follow-up is important to assist laboratories in improving robustness of wastewater-based epidemiology results.

The aim of this study was to screen seized illegal cannabis plants for pesticides. Cannabis samples were analysed according to the EN 15662 method. Pesticides were detected with UPLC/MS-MS in positive ESI mode using multiple reaction monitoring and GC-MS using scan mode. A total of 50 samples were tested for 160 different pesticides. Seven different pesticides were detected in 19 samples and five samples contained two pesticides. Four of the pesticides detected were fungicides (propamocarb, tebuconazole, propiconazole and tolylfluanid). The other 3 pesticides detected were insecticides or acaricides (imidacloprid, bifenthrin, and hexythiazox).

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