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The COVID-19 pandemic caused that most countries established the closure of many beaches, affecting the scientific monitoring of thousands of coastal sectors. This article shows the status of beach litter in South America before and after COVID-19 closure. The data were obtained during the years 2019, 2020 and 2022 on 25 beaches using a technique BLAT-QQ. The results show that cigarette butts were the most frequent type of litter, meanwhile Brazil should improve cleanliness of general gross litter and gross polystyrene. Colombia gross vegetation litter and small vegetation litter, and Ecuador organic litter from animals. The results shown in qualitative and quantitative manner facilitate their understanding for managers, scholars and activists interested on beach litter monitoring. This baseline is useful to analyse regional and worldwide marine litter trends with the purpose to start or restart monitoring of tourist beaches from a science-based method.

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Urban tourist beach ecosystems provide the essential service of recreation. These ecosystems also support critical ecological functions where biodiversity conservation is not usually a priority. The sudden lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic created a unique opportunity to evaluate the effects of human absence in these urban-coastal ecosystems. This study examined bioindicators from 29 urban tourist beaches in seven Latin-American countries and assesses their response to lockdown about some relevant anthropogenic stressors such as pollution, noise, human activities, and user density. The presence of animals and plants, as well as the intensity of stressors, were assessed through a standardized protocol during lockdown conditions. Additionally, the environmental conditions of the beaches before and during lockdown were qualitatively compared using multivariate non-parametric statistics. We found notable positive changes in biological components and a clear decrease in human stressors on almost all the beaches. Dune vegetation increased on most sites. Similarly, high burrow densities of ghost crabs were observed on beaches, except those where cleaning activity persisted. Because of the lockdown, there was an exceptionally low frequency of beach users, which in turn reduced litter, noise and unnatural odors. The observed patterns suggest that tourist beaches can be restored to natural settings relatively quickly. We propose several indicators to measure changes in beaches once lockdown is relaxed. Adequate conservation strategies will render the recreational service of tourist beaches more environmental-friendly.

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Human interventions on coastal areas are always causing environmental impact; however, most of the times inventories of those interventions are possibly not well structured, and surely without a specific standard. The raw data presented shows an exhaustive and systematic revision of satellite images on 1700 km of the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where 2743 human interventions were identified. These interventions are classified in 38 categories in order to assess their environmental impact at a regional scale. The filtered data shows the environmental impact obtained for each category and the values allotted to each of the four parameters used for this evaluation. Moreover, the data is filtered for each of the five environmental coastal units in which the Caribbean coast of Colombia is divided by national regulations. Finally, the filtered and processed data shows the analysis done to obtain the graphical results of a previously paper (An evaluation of human interventions in the anthropogenically disturbed Caribbean Coast of Colombia [1]). Therefore, this dataset comprises three spreadsheets (xlsx) and two geographical files (kmz), which are ready to be used for any researcher, decision maker, land planner or practitioner interested in making further analysis on environmental impact assessment in coastal areas. Additionally, the dataset is carefully organised for educational exercises in such a manner that professors or lecturers can repeat the same steps in this study area or in their own, from the inventory to the final results.

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Litter presence was assessed on the entire Cuban coastline, and includes 99 beaches from all Cuban regions, during field work carried out in 2012 and 2015. A standard method verified in several countries was applied, which classified beaches for nine types of litter into four grades (A-excellent to D-poor). Almost half of the Cuban beaches obtained excellent cleanliness scores, although many needed to be better managed. In this baseline, the most common types of residue were general litter (8% grade D and 35% grades B/C) and potentially harmful litter (<68% with grade A). Resort beaches and those with international visitors showed the best litter management. Tourism Impacts seems to be related to visitor origin therefore choices to develop sustainable tourism in rural and village beaches (64%) appears low, if beach cleaning gross investment is focused on resort beaches (24%). Finally, this paper highlights geographical distribution and types of litter patterns.

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INTRODUCTION: Media are main allies to encourage donation and transplantation. We sought to quantify the presence in the media of the topic "Donation and transplantation (D/Tx)" during the period 2005 to 2007 and to determine the relationship between the volume of information issued by the media and indexes related to the topic. METHODS: We conducted a systematic recording of the news on the topic of D/Tx in print, radio, and television during 2005 to 2007. RESULTS: There was an increased presence in the media by 100% in 2005 and 2006, and by 200% in 2007. The presence in print media was greater than radio (249 +/- 31.5 vs 131 +/- 5.49; P = .05) or television (249 +/- 31.5 vs 92 +/- 7.12; P = .01). We observed a positive correlation between the total number of contacts versus the number of registered volunteer donors (R(2) = 0.9713) and number of contacts versus total number of transplants from cadaveric donors (CTX; R(2) = 0905). The index CTX per million population increased by 30% (2006 vs 2005) and 100% (2007 vs 2005). The percent of family refusals fell from 41% in 2005 to 34% in 2006 and to 31% in 2007. The rate of donors per million population grew steadily from 1.8 in 2005 to 2.3 in 2006, and to 3.6 in 2007. CONCLUSION: The sustained increase in D/Tx briefing as a strategy of Sistema de Procura de Organos y Tejidos has helped to foster a positive perception that is reflected in the increased rate of donation and transplantation in Venezuela.

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OBJECTIVE: To identify the variables that influenced brain-dead donor family groups to refuse donation. METHODS: The Tissue and Organ Procurement System in Venezuela designed a tool to register some phases of a family interview performed by transplant coordinators. This tool analyzed three phases. The first phase of the interview allowed the coordinator to evaluate the communication quality with the family group during a brain-death notification. The second phase assessed how families understood this notification, and the third phase identified the family grief sequence. Among the 186 interviews during 2007 to procure tissues and organs for transplantation, 37.63% (n = 70) concluded as family refusals. A retrospective study sought to analyze these results. RESULTS: The average time between notification of brain death and the first approach to the family was 8.78 hours. Setting a place for interviews was done in 91.10% of cases. Previous knowledge about donation was seen in only 53.33% of cases. The main phase of family grief identified was denial (80%). The five reasons for family denial were: absolute denial, family disagreement, uncertainty about the destination of the donated organs and tissues, fear about deformation of the donor's body, and lack of acceptance of brain death. CONCLUSIONS: Brain-death notification produced a deep sadness among family groups. There was a lack of knowledge regarding donation of tissues and organs. It was impossible to quantify the time needed by families to understand and accept brain death and to identify the grief sequence in order to avoid family refusals.

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Latin America, a region composed of a series of neighboring countries that share their history, Latin ancestry and language (Spanish or Portuguese), includes Mexico, Central America, the Spanish Caribbean islands, and South America. The Latin-American Dialysis and Kidney Transplantation Registry, which has been operative since 1991, collects data from 20 countries (Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Uruguay), where 97% of Latin Americans live. The prevalence of renal replacement therapy (RRT) has increased from 119 patients per million (pmp) in 1991 to 478.2 in 2005 (147,158 patients [57%] on chronic hemodialysis, 58,251 [23%] on peritoneal dialysis and 52,565 [20%] living with a functioning kidney graft). The incidence rate also increased from 27.8 pmp in 1992 to 167 in 2005. The increment in prevalence and incidence occurred in all Latin- American countries. The transplantation rate increased from 3,7 pmp in 1987 to 15 pmp in 2005 (7,968 kidney transplants performed this year, the cumulative number being 98,415). Access to RRT was available for every patient diagnosed with end-stage renal disease only in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Uruguay. In Latin America, the incidence and prevalence of RRT increased year by year. Only in some countries is access to RRT available to 100% of diagnosed patients. Detection and prevention programs for chronic kidney disease are needed in the region. Meanwhile, access to RRT has to be improved for everybody who needs it.

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Recently in Latin America, there has been a strong influence of the "Spanish model" of organ procurement. In 2001, The "Punta Cana Group" was created by Latin American transplantation coordinators with the objective of registering and improving the system of donation and procurement. In many countries there is no universal financial support from the government for medical treatment, including dialysis and transplantation. In other countries there is complete financial support for all of the population, including immunosuppressive drugs. Practically all countries have transplantation laws that follow ethical concepts, such as brain death diagnosis criteria, forms of consent, criteria of allocation, and inhibition of commerce. The rate of potential donors notified in countries that perform transplantations with deceased donors varied from 6 to 47 per million population yearly (pmp/y); The rate of effective donors varied from 1 to 20 pmp. In 2004, the mean rate of effective donors in Latin America was 5.4 pmp. The family refusal rate for the donation of organs varied from 28% in Uruguay to 70% in Peru. In some countries, such as Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and Cuba, it was more than 15 pmp, whereas in others countries deceased donors were practically not used. The number of patients on the waiting list for solid organ transplants in 12 Latin American countries is 55,000. Although the donation rate has increased by 100% during the last 10 years, it is lower than that in Europe (15 pmm/y) or the United States (20 pmp/y).

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