Pesticides, especially the newly developed neonicotinoids, are increasingly used in many countries around the world, including Cameroon, to control pests involved in crop destruction or disease transmission. Unfortunately, the pesticides also pose tremendous environmental problems because a predominant amount of their residues enter environmental matrices to affect other nontargeted species including humans. This therefore calls for continuous biomonitoring of these insecticides in human populations. The present study sought to assess the neonicotinoid insecticide exposures in two agrarian regions of Cameroon, the South‐West region and Littoral region. The study involved 188 men, including 125 farmers and 63 nonfarmers. Spot urine samples were obtained from these subjects and subjected to liquid chromatographic–tandem mass spectrometric analysis for concentrations of neonicotinoid compounds, including acetamiprid, clothianidin, dinotefuran, imidacloprid, thiacloprid, nitenpyram, thiamethoxam, and N‐dm‐acetamiprid. Neonicotinoid compounds were detected in all study participants, and residues of all the screened pesticides were detected among participants. N‐dm‐Acetamiprid and imidacloprid were the most prevalent among the subjects (100.0% and 93.1%, respectively), whereas nitenpyram was less common (3.2%). The median values of imidacloprid and total urinary neonicotinoid concentrations were elevated among farmers (0.258 vs. 0.126 µg/L and 0.829 vs. 0.312 µg/L, respectively). Altogether the findings showed that both the farmer and nonfarmer study populations of Cameroon were exposed to multiple residues of neonicotinoids, with relatively higher levels of pesticides generally recorded among farmers. Although exposure levels of the neonicotinoids were generally lower than their respective reference doses, these results warrant further research on the health risk evaluation of multiple residues of the pesticides and reinforcement of control measures to minimize the exposure risks, especially among farmers. Environ Toxicol Chem 2024;00:1–13. © 2024 SETAC

中文翻译：

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喀麦隆西南部和沿海地区男性农民和非农民接触新烟碱类农药的情况：一项比较研究

包括喀麦隆在内的世界许多国家越来越多地使用农药，特别是新开发的新烟碱类杀虫剂来控制造成作物破坏或疾病传播的害虫。不幸的是，这些杀虫剂还造成了巨大的环境问题，因为它们的大部分残留物进入环境基质，影响包括人类在内的其他非目标物种。因此，这需要对人群中的这些杀虫剂进行持续的生物监测。本研究旨在评估喀麦隆两个农业地区（西南地区和滨海地区）的新烟碱类杀虫剂暴露情况。该研究涉及 188 名男性，其中包括 125 名农民和 63 名非农民。从这些受试者身上获取点尿样本，并进行液相色谱-串联质谱分析新烟碱类化合物的浓度，包括啶虫脒、噻虫胺、呋虫胺、吡虫啉、噻虫啉、烯啶虫胺、噻虫嗪和氮‐dm-啶虫脒。在所有研究参与者中均检测到新烟碱类化合物，并且在参与者中检测到所有筛选的农药残留。氮‐dm-啶虫脒和吡虫啉在受试者中最常见（分别为 100.0% 和 93.1%），而烯啶虫胺则不太常见（3.2%）。农民中吡虫啉和尿新烟碱类杀虫剂总浓度的中值升高（分别为 0.258 vs. 0.126 µg/L 和 0.829 vs. 0.312 µg/L）。总而言之，研究结果表明，喀麦隆的农民和非农民研究人群都接触过多种新烟碱类杀虫剂残留，农民中普遍记录的农药含量相对较高。尽管新烟碱类杀虫剂的暴露水平普遍低于各自的参考剂量，但这些结果值得进一步研究多种农药残留的健康风险评估，并加强控制措施，以尽量减少暴露风险，尤其是农民的暴露风险。环境毒理化学2024；00：1–13。 © 2024 SETAC 版权所有