Mpox virus detection in the wastewater and the number of hospitalized patients in the Poznan metropolitan area, Poland.

OBJECTIVES: Wastewater-based epidemiology can determine the scale of a mpox epidemic and thus is a promising additional tool that can complete data gathered by the clinical monitoring approach and predict more accurately the development and progress of the current mpox outbreak. METHODS: We collected daily average samples from two wastewater treatment plants (WTPs): Central and Left-Bank, in Poznan, Poland from July to December 2022. The mpox DNA was detected using real-time polymerase chain reaction and compared with the number of hospitalizations. RESULTS: We detected the mpox DNA in the Central WTP in weeks 29, 43, and 47 and the Left-Bank WTP mostly from mid-September till the end of October. A total of 22 patients with mpox were reported by the public health authority from July to December 2022, with the highest number of hospitalized individuals from mid-July to mid-August. The mpox virus detection does not correlate with the number of hospitalizations in Poznan, Poland. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that the scale of the mpox epidemic is underestimated, and many mpox virus-infected individuals are not identified by the public health authority.

Multielemental Analysis of Bee Pollen, Propolis, and Royal Jelly Collected in West-Central Poland.

Beehive products possess nutritional value and health-promoting properties and are recommended as so-called "superfoods". However, because of their natural origin, they may contain relevant elemental contaminants. Therefore, to assess the quality of bee products, we examined concentrations of a broad range of 24 selected elements in propolis, bee pollen, and royal jelly. The quantitative analyses were performed with inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) techniques. The results of our research indicate that bee products contain essential macronutrients (i.e., K, P, and S) and micronutrients (i.e., Zn and Fe) in concentrations depending on the products' type. However, the presence of toxic heavy metals makes it necessary to test the quality of bee products before using them as dietary supplements. Bearing in mind that bee products are highly heterogenous and, depending on the environmental factors, differ in their elemental content, it is necessary to develop standards regulating the acceptable levels of inorganic pollutants. Furthermore, since bees and their products are considered to be an effective biomonitoring tool, our results may reflect the environment's condition in west-central Poland, affecting the health and well-being of both humans and bees.