Prevalence studies of current smoking, among hospitalized COVID-19 patients, demonstrated an unexpectedly low prevalence among patients with COVID-19. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of smoke from cigarettes on ACE-2 in bronchial epithelial cells. Normal bronchial epithelial cells (H292) were exposed to smoke by an air-liquid-interface (ALI) system and ACE-2 membrane protein expression was evaluated after 24 hours from exposure. Our transcriptomics data analysis showed a significant selective reduction of membrane ACE-2 expression (about 25%) following smoking exposure. Interestingly, we observed a positive direct correlation between ACE-2 reduction and nicotine delivery. Furthermore, by stratifying GSE52237 as a function of ACE-2 gene expression levels, we highlighted 1012 genes related to ACE-2 in smokers and 855 in non-smokers. Furthermore, we showed that 161 genes involved in the endocytosis process were highlighted using the online pathway tool KEGG. Finally, 11 genes were in common between the ACE-2 pathway in smokers and the genes regulated during endocytosis, while 12 genes with non-smokers. Interestingly, six in non-smokers and four genes in smokers were closely involved during the viral internalization process. Our data may offer a pharmaceutical role of nicotine as potential treatment option in COVID-19.    

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This is the second civil society-led monitoring report produced by Correlation – European Harm Reduction Network (C-EHRN) within the context of our operational grant from the European Commission. The purpose of this report is to enrich the information and knowledge base of harm reduction interventions in Europe from the viewpoint of civil society organisations. We believe that this approach is a necessary, and useful, contribution to the development of drug policy in the region. We learned a lot from the former process and the 2019 edition and modified the approach, the focus and certain questions to enable respondents to report closer to their own experiences. Consequently, the information provided in this report sometimes represents the situation in a particular city or region and informs us as to the experiences of a specific organisation in the field. Such ‘real life’ information can contribute significantly to an understanding of the advantages, barriers and challenges of drug policy. Even stronger, we directly approached representatives of networks and organizations of people who use drugs to share their view on the developments with us. 2020, however, was not a regular year and the world wide pandemic had its influence on people, organisations and the care system in general. Accordingly, we added a section on the impact of COVID-19 on harm reduction services and we will continue to measure this impact. We will use the insights and information collected in this report within our advocacy efforts to strengthen harm reduction policies in Europe and, we hope, our partners and contributors will do the same in their environment at a regional and national level. More than one hundred organisations and individuals from 34 European countries have contributed to the collection of data with an amazingly high response rate; we thank all contributors for their great work and commitment. Without their engagement, this work would never have been undertaken at all. In particular, we would like to thank the authors of this report, Rafaela Rigoni, Tuukka Tammi, Daan van der Gouwe, and Victoria Oberzil, who were supported by the coordinators of the expert groups and the reviewers of this report. We are also grateful to HRI and Robert Czack for contributing with a chapter to this report. A special thanks to Dagmar Hedrich and her EMCDDA colleagues for their ongoing and patient support. We thank the European Commission, DG Sante, for their financial support and to the Regenboog Groep, Amsterdam, for their ongoing support of Correlation – European Harm Reduction Network