Background Ukraine has the highest HIV burden of any European country with much of the current HIV epidemic concentrated among people who inject drugs (PWIDs) and their sexual partners. Opiate substitution therapy (OST) is limited in Ukraine and expansion of OST is urgently needed to help stem the tide of the HIV epidemic. Methods We accessed publicly available data in Ukraine in order to explore geographic variability with respect to prevalence of HIV, PWIDs and OST programmes. Results The regions of Ukraine with the largest number of opioid dependent persons (the south and eastern portions of the country) correspond to the regions with the highest HIV prevalence and HIV incidence. The number of opioid PWIDs per 100,000 population as well as the number of all OST treatment slots per 100,000 varied significantly across the three HIV prevalence categories. Overall, the proportion of individuals receiving either methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) or buprenorphine maintenance therapy (BMT) was quite low: average across categories: 7.3% and 0.4%, respectively. Additionally, less than half of OST patients receiving MMT or BMT were HIV positive patients. Conclusion There is significant geographic variability in both numbers of HIV positive individuals and numbers of PWIDs across Ukraine, however, there may be a more concentrated epidemic among PWIDs in many regions of the country. Scale up of addiction treatment for PWID, especially OST, can have a significant impact on preventing injection related morbidity, such as HIV and HCV infection. Ukraine can learn from the mistakes other nations have made in denying critical treatment opportunities to PWID.

This study presents a large-scale monitoring of marine litter performed in the joint Norwegian-Russian ecosystem monitoring surveys in the period from 2010 to 2016 and contribute to documentation of the extent of marine litter in the Barents Sea. The distribution and abundance of marine litter were calculated by recordings of bycatch from the pelagic trawling in upper 60 m, from bottom trawling close to the sea floor, and floating marine debris at surface by visual observations. The study is comprehensive regarding coverage and number with registrations from 2,265 pelagic trawls and 1,860 bottom trawls, in addition to surface registration between the stations. Marine litter has been recorded from 301 pelagic and 624 of the bottom trawl catches. In total, 784 visual observations of floating marine debris were recorded during the period. Marine litter has been categorized according to volume or weight of the material types plastic, wood, metal, rubber, glass, paper, and textile. Marine litter is observed in the entire Barents Sea and distribution vary with material densities, ocean currents and depth. Plastic dominated number of observations with marine litter, as 72% of surface observations, 94% of pelagic trawls, and 86% of bottom trawls contained plastic. Observations of wood constituted 19% of surface observations, 1% of pelagic trawls, and 17% of bottom trawls with marine litter. Materials from other categories such as metal, rubber, paper, textile, and glass were observed sporadically. Recordings of wood dominated surface observations (61.9 ± 21.6% by volume) and on seafloor (59.4 ± 35.0% by weight), while plastic dominated marine litter observations in upper 60 m depth (86.4 ± 16.5% by weight) over these 7 years. Based on recordings and volume or area covered, mean levels of plastic in the upper 60 m of the Barents Sea were found to 0.011 mg m −3 (pelagic) and 2.9 kg km −2 at sea floor over the study period. Average levels of marine litter (all material types) at the sea floor were found to be 26 kg km −2 .

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Enzymes of glutamate and GABA metabolism in postmortem cerebellum from patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) have not been comprehensively studied. The present work reports results of original comparative study on levels of phosphate-activated glutaminase (PAG) and glutamic acid decarboxylase isoenzymes (GAD65/67) in autopsied cerebellum samples from AD patients and matched controls (13 cases in each group) as well as summarizes published evidence for altered levels of PAG and GAD65/67 in AD brain. Altered (decreased) levels of these enzymes and changes in links between amounts of these enzymes and other glutamate-metabolizing enzymes (such as glutamate dehydrogenase and glutamine synthetase-like protein) in AD cerebella suggest significantly impaired glutamate and GABA metabolism in this brain region, which was previously regarded as not substantially involved in AD pathogenesis.