Association Tunisienne Contre le Cancer

The 2020–2023 COVID-19 pandemic impacted societies and healthcare access worldwide, including HIV services. Changes in access exacerbated social inequalities in health among socially underserved groups including people living with HIV (PLHIV). This study aimed to explore PLHIV’s psychosocial experience of the COVID-19 pandemic in the MENA region using a syndemic approach. Sixty-three interviews were conducted with PLHIV between October 2020 and December 2021 in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. We conducted a thematic content analysis of the full corpus. Results from the syndemic framework showed that living with HIV in a pandemic context intersected with PLHIV’s socioeconomic conditions, exacerbating their overall disease burden. Interviewees’ experiences of the pandemic were closely associated with their HIV seropositive status and related socioeconomic constraints. To improve prevention, preparedness, and response for future pandemics, a global approach to health that incorporates syndemic and intersectional perspectives is needed. Such an approach would help to address the health, social and economic constraints that vulnerable groups face, and would ensure more effective and equitable public health responses.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-29487-0.

Currently, a marked number of clinical trials on cancer treatment have revealed the success of immunomodulatory therapies based on immune checkpoint inhibitors that activate tumor-specific T cells. However, the therapeutic efficacy of cancer immunotherapies is only restricted to a small fraction of patients. A deeper understanding of key mechanisms generating an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) remains a major challenge for more effective antitumor immunity. There is a growing evidence that the TME supports inappropriate metabolic reprogramming that dampens T cell function, and therefore impacts the antitumor immune response and tumor progression. Notably, the immunosuppressive TME is characterized by a lack of crucial carbon sources critical for T cell function and increased inhibitory signals. Here, we summarize the basics of intrinsic and extrinsic metabolic remodeling and metabolic checkpoints underlying the competition between cancer and infiltrating immune cells for nutrients and metabolites. Intriguingly, the upregulation of tumor programmed death-L1 and cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 alters the metabolic programme of T cells and drives their exhaustion. In this context, targeting both tumor and T cell metabolism can beneficially enhance or temper immunity in an inhospitable microenvironment and markedly improve the success of immunotherapies.

The objective of the project which is presented in this article was to reconvert tobacco farms into agricultural endeavours which produce crops which are non-harmful to health, simultaneously allowing for agricultural development within a forestry ecosystem. The team, therefore, proposed an experimental pilot project to replace tobacco farms with other crops, namely fodder, tree and market crops. Fodder crops allow farms to reduce the burden put on the natural resources by the various types of farming present in the area. Furthermore, this policy contributes to the increase in revenue from those farms benefiting from the project and established a community structure for managing the project, which could become an Agricultural Development Cooperative at the close of the project.