Drug supply in the aftermath of the 1988 Armenian earthquake.

After the 1988 Armenian earthquake, which affected an area with a population of 700,000, international relief operations sent a minimum of 5000 tons of drugs and consumable medical supplies. Because of difficulties with identification and sorting, only 30% of the drugs were immediately usable by the health workers in Armenia. Such quantities posed numerous problems for transportation and storage. Useless and expired agents comprised 11% and 8% of the drugs, respectively. 20% of all the drugs provided by international aid had to be destroyed by the end of 1989.

[Serological and clinical studies of endemic treponematosis in the Republic of Mali]. / Etudes sérologiques et cliniques sur la tréponématose endémique en République du Mali.

In Mali, in the sahelian zone, the prevalence of non venereal endemic syphilis is currently equivalent to the prevalence that existed before the eradication campaigns of the years 1950-60. Because new control programmes of the disease had to be initiated, studies have been performed to measure the current impact of the mass campaigns with long acting penicillin, and to look for a simple method that could rapidly assess the impact of the control programmes. These studies underline that the control of endemic syphilis in these areas cannot rely solely upon the health care facilities, but that mobile strategies and mass campaigns will perhaps always be needed in the areas not covered by the health care facilities. The studies demonstrate also the interest of a technique such as the quantitative VDRL for the epidemiologic surveillance of endemic syphilis.

Altered adult behavior of mice following postnatal treatment with haloperidol.

Haloperidol (1 and 2 mg/kg) was administered SC daily to BALB/c and Swiss/Webster mice from postnatal days 4 through 21. Non consistent statistically significant drug effects were detected on growth and reflex development. Spontaneous motor activity increased significantly in both sexes of the Swiss/Webster outbred strain, and in the Balb/c males. Performance of a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement of both male and female haloperidol-exposed mice was not statistically different from control performance. Interpretation of such data must take into account the sensitivity of the testing devices, the effects of repeated testing of a single animal, and the suitability of traditional statistical methods in developmental pharmacology and toxicology.

Titration schedule with rats in a restraining device.

In a restraining device, providing a constant localization and easy placement of stimulating electrodes, rats were conditioned to push a front panel in order to reduce the intensity of a shock which otherwise increased regularly every 10 sec. Rapid conditioning was obtained from all subjects. They showed a very stable behavior, with negligible inter- or intra-individual variability throughout very long experimental sessions. The operant nature of the response was demonstrated further in extinction, where no shock was delivered, and in situations where the animal could not change the predetermined intensity of the shock. The interpretation of the obtained threshold was discussed with reference to previous studies on titration schedule. It was suggested that, with the parameters used, the shock intensity at which it was maintained by the rats' behavior, had the value of a warning signal, and that, in this particular case, the titration schedule generated mainly discriminative avoidance behavior rather than escape behavior.