Global health review
A weekly round-up of all the latest global health research from MSF projects and beyond
17 April 2026
To underscore the MSF-UK initiative and the importance of investing in operationally aligned research in humanitarian settings, MSF Scientific Days 2026 is hosting two exciting research-driven sessions on how evidence can shape our medical programming: “Adapting care through evidence: making tools fit our reality” and “Whose voices shape our programmes? Using research to rethink our approaches.” Register here to attend in person or online.
This week, an MSF-authored opinion in The BMJ draws on a decade of experience designing and delivering critical care training to demonstrate how it can strengthen care delivery by generalist doctors and nurses practising in low-resource settings.
In Clinical Microbiology and Infection, an MSF editorial highlights the highly lethal and epidemic threat of Ebola, pointing to the efficacy of the rVSV-ZEBOV (Ervebo) vaccine in preventing infection and reducing disease incidence and mortality.
In International Wound Journal, a study conducted in Nablus, Palestine found nurses had adequate knowledge but suboptimal pressure injury prevention practice, with only 31.6% meeting standards; recent training was associated with better performance.
Finally, in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, a youth co-created global framework outlines a coordinated approach across all levels to tackle the triple burden of adolescent malnutrition and strengthen policy and investment, and an MSF systematic review in BMJ Paediatrics Open found no evidence of fluid overload or impaired systolic cardiac function in children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM) receiving intravenous fluids for cholera, challenging current restrictive guidelines.
Best regards,
Maya Fenyk, Lillian Matthes, and Holly Baker with MSF-authored article assistance from Amelia Zhao.
All MSF-authored publications can be found on the MSF Science Portal, as well as recordings, abstracts and posters from the MSF Scientific Days 2025 conference.
Antimicrobial resistance
Clinical Infectious Diseases • Article: Trends in Long Duration Antibiotic Prescribing Following Focused Outpatient Antimicrobial Stewardship Efforts Across a Large Healthcare Enterprise
Climate change and Planetary Health
The Lancet • Comment: Life at the water's edge: a Lancet Commission on sea-level rise, health, and justice
The Lancet Planetary Health • Viewpoint: Global environmental change and the gut–kidney–brain axis: a review and framework of vulnerability and resilience
The Lancet Planetary Health • Editorial: Re-endangerment
BMC Health Services Research • Article: Utilizing a co-production strategy to identify multi sectoral priorities for enhancing preparedness against extreme weather events in vulnerable District Badin, Sindh-Pakistan
PLOS Speaking of Medicine Blog • Blog: Behind the paper: Health systems collaboration can strengthen climate change resilience: Insights from Indigenous knowledges in the Latin American region
Conflict, migration and health
The BMJ Global Health • Comment: Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine: epidemiological challenges for public health
Malaria Journal • Article: Malaria at the margins: climatic extremes, migration, and urban informal settlement risk in South Africa
Global Public Health • Review: Seroprevalence of hepatitis C virus among refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced populations within Africa: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Conflict & Health • Article: Can improved handwashing infrastructure and soap change behavior? findings from a randomized control study in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya
Ebola
Clinical Microbiology and Infection • Editorial***MSF AUTHOR***: A cutting-edge vaccine could address a gap in protection against Ebola virus disease
Global health
The BMJ Global Health • Article: Implementation and evaluation of a pragmatic community streptococcal treatment programme to improve rheumatic heart disease primary prevention in Uganda
Health Policy and Planning • Review: Understanding the formulation of non-communicable disease policies in Nepal: A qualitative study
Health Policy and Planning • Review: The pervasiveness of racism in healthcare facilities in Latin America: A scoping review
Global Public Health • Article: Power, surveillance, and the limits of resistance: The role of community health workers in India's health system
BMC Health Services Research • Article: Work-related quality of life and associated factors among healthcare professionals in public hospitals of Bahir Dar City, Northwest Ethiopia
BMC Health Services Research • Article: The mediating role of knowledge transfer in the relationship between transformational leadership and digital healthcare performance in the Eastern Health Cluster, Saudi Arabia
Social Science & Medicine • Article: Where State, Market, and Community Meet: Village Doctors and the Governance of Rural Health in China
PLOS Speaking of Medicine Blog • Blog: Why research struggles in the places where it is needed most—and what TIMER-2C helps us see differently
HIV
The Lancet HIV • Article: Efficacy and safety of short-cycle, dolutegravir-based antiretroviral therapy in adolescents living with HIV (BREATHER Plus): a multicentre, open-label, randomised, parallel, two-arm, non-inferiority trial
The Lancet HIV • Comment: The caveats of short-cycle antiretroviral therapy in adolescents living with HIV
The Lancet HIV • Viewpoint: Targeted universalism for long-acting PrEP: an urgent need to avoid risk targeting and build population-level impact
The Lancet HIV • Comment: Ending HIV requires research in and with South Africa
Clinical Infectious Diseases • Article: Predictors of treatment failure in children living with HIV starting first-line antiretroviral therapy in the ODYSSEY trial
Clinical Infectious Diseases • Article: Tracking HIV Through Wastewater: Ethical Considerations in Public Health Surveillance
Clinical Infectious Diseases • Article: Understanding the clinical implications of the barrier against resistance in antiretroviral treatment
Social Science & Medicine • Article: Diamonds and Viruses: Reconstructing the Epidemiological Origins of HIV-1 in Angola’s Mining Frontier
Infectious diseases
The Lancet Infectious Diseases • Correspondence: When mpox is not mpox: varicella and measles in DR Congo
The BMJ Global Health • Comment: Strengthening the hepatitis B care cascade to prevent vertical transmission in Africa: a call to empower midwives
JAMA • Comment: Prevention of Respiratory Syncytial Virus–Related Hospitalization in Newborns
PLOS Medicine • Article: The benefits of investments to combat HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria for primary healthcare from 2000 to 2023: An economic modeling analysis
Tropical Medicine & International Health • Review: Two Decades of Dengue in Bangladesh (2001–2024): Epidemiologic Trends, Geographic Spread and Climatic Drivers
Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene • Article: Prevalence and subtype diversity of Blastocystis hominis among gastroenteritis patients in northern and central Jordan
BMC Health Services Research • Article: Strategic analysis of the health information system for communicable disease control in Afghanistan
Malaria
The BMJ Global Health • Comment: Public awareness and education: key to the success of the malaria vaccine rollout in Sudan
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: The dynamics of asymptomatic Plasmodium spp. infections following 10 years of malaria control interventions in Northern Sahelian Ghana
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Review: Household and community-based approaches to malaria and cholera prevention: A narrative review with case studies from Uganda and Mozambique
Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene • Article: Differential IgG responses to PfHRP2 across the malaria severity spectrum
Malaria Journal • Article: Seasonal variation in aquatic habitat availability and use by the malaria vector, Anopheles funestus
Malaria Journal • Article: Combatting malaria together: key findings from a rapid formative assessment on Royal Thai Army malaria practices and military-civilian collaboration in Sisaket Province, Thailand
Malaria Journal • Article: Malaria microscopy evaluation and quality assurance in rural clinics of Rarieda and Alego Usonga sub-counties of Siaya County, western Kenya
Malaria Journal • Article: New experimental insights into the biology of avian malaria parasites
Malaria Journal • Article: Malaria situation in a highly endemic province in the Central Highlands of Vietnam: a retrospective analysis
Malaria Journal • Review: Kidney and endothelial injury biomarkers as predictors of complications and mortality in patients with malaria: a systematic review
Maternal and child health
The Lancet Infectious Diseases • Correspondence: Mpox virus in human breastmilk and tecovirimat pharmacokinetics: implications for postnatal transmission
The BMJ Global Health • Article: Knowledge and attitudes of community health workers in Ecuador regarding the prevention of chronic malnutrition in children: results of a cross-sectional exploratory study
Malaria Journal • Article: Prevalence of malaria during pregnancy and coverage of intermittent preventive treatment with sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine in urban Amboasary-Sud, Southern Madagascar
Malaria Journal • Article: Efficacy and safety of artemether-lumefantrine (AL) and artesunate-amodiaquine (ASAQ) for the treatment of uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum malaria among children 6–59 months in three sentinel sites of Sierra Leone, 2021–2022
Malaria Journal • Article: Guideline-concordant care and outcomes for pediatric malaria cases: descriptive evidence from pharmacy-based fever management in Kenya
Global Public Health • Article: The perception of gestational risk through the lens of social determinants of health: a mixed-methods study
Social Science & Medicine • Article: Pregnancy, birth, and postpartum under heat strain: Visibilising lived experiences and coping practices of women in rural Zimbabwe through an adapted participatory Photovoice approach
The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health • Article: A co-created, global action-oriented framework for adolescent nutrition
Nutrients • Review: Informing the Development of Tailored Antenatal Care Services for Pregnant Adolescents: A Systematic Review and Stakeholder Survey
BMJ Paediatrics Open • Article***MSF AUTHOR***: Systematic review of the evidence of cardiac dysfunction and intravenous fluid use among children with severe acute malnutrition and severe dehydration
Mental health
Social Science & Medicine • Article: Looking through the cracks: vulnerabilities and deprivation in the Brazilian open drug scenes
Social Science & Medicine • Article: Digital Health among Forcibly Displaced Women in the MENA Region: Risks of Reproducing Traumatic Experiences through Technological Mediation
Neglected tropical diseases
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Sensitivity analysis of factors influencing the ecology of mosquitoes involved in the transmission of Rift Valley fever virus
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Diagnosis and therapeutic outcomes of biopsy-confirmed Pure Neuritic Leprosy: A two-decade experience
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Comparison of serum vitamin D level and vitamin D receptor gene FokI polymorphism in leprosy patients with and without trophic ulcers: A case-control study
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Epidemiological and molecular characterization of Rift Valley fever outbreak in livestock in Burundi, May - November 2022
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Barriers to integration of passive screening for sleeping sickness in Bibanga Health District, Democratic Republic of the Congo
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Genomic characterisation of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) in Tajikistan identifies a novel reassortant virus
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Human Filariasis in Africa (2000–2025): Changing epidemiology, uneven diagnostic progress, and persistent neglect
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Review: Integration of population-based surveys for neglected tropical diseases: A scoping review
Clinical and Translational Science • Article***DNDi AUTHOR***: Translational Pharmacokinetic-Pharmacodynamic Modeling and Efficacious Human Dose Prediction of DNDI-6148 for the Treatment of Cutaneous Leishmaniasis
Non-communicable diseases
The BMJ Global Health • Article: Transition of obesity in India, 2006–2021: a state-wise investigation from an equity perspective
JAMA • News: How mRNA Vaccines Could Help Treat Cancer
Research and reporting
The BMJ • Article: Non-drug perioperative interventions to reduce postoperative pulmonary complications after abdominal surgery: systematic review and meta-analysis
The BMJ • Opinion***MSF AUTHOR***: Critical care training enhances intensive care provision in low resource settings
International Wound Journal • Article***MSF AUTHOR***: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of Nurses Regarding Pressure Injury Prevention and Management in Nablus, Palestine: A Cross-Sectional Study
Tuberculosis
The BMJ • Article: Efficacy and safety of VPM1002 and Immuvac in preventing tuberculosis: phase 3 randomised clinical trial (PreVenTB trial)
JAMA • Comment: Smoking Cessation Intervention for People With Tuberculosis
PLOS Medicine • Article: Trade-offs in diagnostic algorithm, population coverage, and duration of community screening for tuberculosis: A modelling study
PLOS Medicine • Review: Urban and rural prevalence of tuberculosis in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Global Public Health • Article: Beyond biomedical care: A focused ethnography of health system readiness for tuberculosis–depression comorbidity in Pakistan
Vaccines
Conflict & Health • Article: Rationale for the under-implementation of catch-up vaccination in conflict-affected regions, Northeast Ethiopia