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BACKGROUND: Continuation of standard management of Gaucher disease (GD) has been challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in infrequent/missed infusions and follow-up appointments. Little data are available on the consequences of these changes and on the SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations in German GD patients. METHODS: A survey with 22 questions about GD management during the pandemic was sent to 19 German Gaucher centres. It was answered by 11/19 centres caring for 257 GD patients (almost ¾ of the German GD population); 245 patients had type 1 and 12 had type 3 GD; 240 were ≥ 18 years old. RESULTS: Monitoring intervals were prolonged in 8/11 centres from a median of 9 to 12 months. Enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) was changed to home ERT in 4 patients and substituted by oral substrate reduction therapy (SRT) in 6 patients. From March 2020 to October 2021, no serious complications of GD were documented. Only 4 SARS-CoV-2 infections were reported (1.6%). Two infections were asymptomatic and two mild; all occurred in adult type 1, non-splenectomized patients on ERT. Vaccination rate in adult GD was 79.5% (95.3% mRNA vaccines). Serious vaccination complications were not reported. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic has lowered the threshold for switching from practice- or hospital-based ERT to home therapy or to SRT. No major GD complication was documented during the pandemic. Infection rate with SARS-CoV-2 in GD may rather be lower than expected, and its severity is mild. Vaccination rates are high in GD patients and vaccination was well tolerated.

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In this paper we look at local effects of recent changes in how the international borders of two Afghan provinces, Nangarhar and Nimroz, are governed. Over the past decade Pakistan and Iran introduced changes to border infrastructure and regulation in an attempt to increase state control over both official and informal flows of goods and people. We consider the political rationale behind these decisions, then look at the consequences these changes have had on licit as well as illicit economic activities in the border region. The paper builds on field research conducted in Nangarhar and Nimroz from 2018 to 2020. We find that reducing the permeability of the border has affected life in the neighbouring Afghan borderlands in different ways. In Nimroz, an informal local economy existing between historically interwoven Baluch communities on all sides of the border is being crowded out by boom-town dynamics, external land acquisition and selective control of the border by foreign states. The impact of border enforcement is direct and drastic, damaging the survival economy of border communities and accelerating demographic change. In Nangarhar, we find a more diverse and adaptive local cross-border economy, with a history of utilising both official and informal border crossings for trade in licit and illicit commodities. However, measures taken on the Pakistani side have led to shifts in informal trade, and changes to patterns of competition and control over the most lucrative routes and hubs. In both cases, illicit cross-border flows did not cease, but they changed in character from more broadly accessible horizontal activities to professional and hierarchical activities using fewer trading hubs and corridors. The drug trade is not exceptionally violent or disruptive, but is part of a commodity market embedded in a wider, often violent, political economy dominated by local political entrepreneurs and their networks.

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The Taihu (Tai lake) region is one of the most economically prospering areas of China. Due to its location within this district of high anthropogenic activities, Taihu represents a drastic example of water pollution with nutrients (nitrogen, phosphate), organic contaminants and heavy metals. High nutrient levels combined with very shallow water create large eutrophication problems, threatening the drinking water supply of the surrounding cities. Within the international research project SIGN (SinoGerman Water Supply Network, www.water-sign.de), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), a powerful consortium of fifteen German partners is working on the overall aim of assuring good water quality from the source to the tap by taking the whole water cycle into account: The diverse research topics range from future proof strategies for urban catchment, innovative monitoring and early warning approaches for lake and drinking water, control and use of biological degradation processes, efficient water treatment technologies, adapted water distribution up to promoting sector policy by good governance. The implementation in China is warranted, since the leading Chinese research institutes as well as the most important local stakeholders, e.g. water suppliers, are involved.