Global health review

MSF outreach workers test people for kala azar, Fulbaria, Mymensingh district, Bangladesh. Caption
MSF outreach workers test people for kala azar, Fulbaria, Mymensingh district, Bangladesh.

A weekly round-up of all the latest global health research from MSF projects and beyond

04 April 2025

This week in The Lancet Global Health, Epicentre and MSF discuss admission delays and their association with case-fatality risks among three types of Ebola virus disease facilities during the 2018–20 outbreak in DR Congo. Patients that presented to decentralised facilities had modestly shorter admission delays than patients presenting to centralised facility types. Additionally, a profile of Yap Boum II in The Lancet reflects on his role in MSF's field implementation of the Ebola vaccine trial during the 2014–16 West Africa outbreak, which was crucial in validating the vaccine and helping contain the outbreak in Guinea.

A comment in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health by Epicentre and MSF highlights that children with severe acute malnutrition are a high-risk group for tuberculosis (TB), emphasising the urgent need for integrated management strategies to address the syndemic of TB and undernutrition. Another comment in the same journal highlights the exclusion of children from trials of the shorter and less toxic multidrug-resistant TB treatment regimen, leaving 25,000–30,000 affected children without access to this treatment.

A letter in Science by MSF argues that the updated Declaration of Helsinki misses a key opportunity to uphold equitable access to life-saving medical products proven effective in clinical trials. It advocates for the inclusion of vulnerable groups in research, through conception to finalisation, rather than just as trial subjects.

Finally, MSF UK is seeking a Project Manager to oversee the implementation of the Nexo Project, which aims to create a user-friendly platform for securely sharing research data.

Best regards,

Zhi Wei Ching, Lydia Lampiri, Madeleine Baxter 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 2024 conference.

Climate change and Planetary Health

The Lancet • Correspondence : Private actors and governance for planetary health equity

The BMJ • News: US National Institutes of Health will stop funding climate health research

BMJ Global Health • Commentry: Towards building climate-resilient health systems and communities: a clarion call to increase investments in public health disaster risk reduction in Africa

Tropical Medicine and International Health • Article: The interplay of oil exploitation, environmental degradation and health in the Niger Delta: A scoping review

 

Conflict, migration and health

PLOS Blogs Speaking of Medicine • Blog: Behind the Paper: Barriers to cervical cancer screening among refugee women: A systematic review

The Lancet • World Report: Calls for new WHO reports on nuclear weapons and health

The Lancet • Correspondence: From exile to aid: Syria's doctors return

The Lancet • Correspondence: Health advocacy for cultural migrants: an overlooked population

The BMJ • News: Gaza: US doctor at bombed hospital says “the world doesn’t seem to care”

Conflict and Health • Article: A qualitative assessment of disease and non-battle injuries in Ukraine since the Russian invasion

Conflict and Health • Article: Real ethics has dirty feet – data collector perspectives on risk exposure during data collection in conflict-affected Eastern DRC

Conflict and Health • Article: Menstrual hygiene management among girls and women refugees in Africa: a scoping review

 

Global health

PLOS Blogs Speaking of Medicine • Blog: Beyond dependency: Rethinking Africa’s relationship with foreign aid

PLOS Blogs Speaking of Medicine • Blog: Imagining a future for global health

The Lancet • Comment: Safeguarding patient and provider rights in an era of US anti-immigration policies

The Lancet • Correspondence: Global health diplomacy in a transactional era

The BMJ • News: What is happening to the US National Institutes of Health?

The BMJ • News: WHO to cut budget by a fifth following Trump withdrawal

BMJ Global Health • Article: Catastrophic health payments in Ghana post-National Health Insurance Scheme implementation: an analysis of service-specific health expenditures

BMJ Global Health • Article: Norm diffusion in global health governance: the role of think tanks

The New England Journal of Medicine • Perspectives: Disappearing Data at the U.S. Federal Government

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: How do high-level African directors of policy and planning operationalize health equity? Findings from a regional survey

Science • Letter***MSF AUTHOR***: Equitable access needed in clinical research

 

HIV

The Lancet HIV • Comment : Modelling study shows staggering impact of HIV funding cuts

The Lancet HIV • Article : Impact of an international HIV funding crisis on HIV infections and mortality in low-income and middle-income countries: a modelling study

The Lancet HIV • Article : Causes of hospitalisation among people living with HIV worldwide, 2014–23: a systematic review and meta-analysis

The Lancet HIV • Review : Tuberculosis disease among people with HIV: therapeutic advances

The BMJ • News: Trump watch: HIV/AIDS research sent into crisis, growing hostility to mRNA vaccines, and more

 

Infectious diseases

The Lancet Global Health • Comment : Decentralised care: a promising strategy in managing Ebola outbreaks

The Lancet Global Health • Article : Evaluation of a decentralised model of care on case isolation and patient outcomes during the 2018–20 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: a retrospective observational study

The Lancet Infectious Diseases • Comment : Closing the pertussis immunity gap: vaccine equity saves infant lives

The Lancet Infectious Diseases • Article : The effect of pertussis vaccination in pregnancy on the immunogenicity of acellular or whole-cell pertussis vaccination in Gambian infants (GaPS): a single-centre, randomised, controlled, double-blind, phase 4 trial

The Lancet • Perspectives***MENTIONS MSF***: Yap Boum II: coordinating the mpox response in Africa

The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific • Viewpoint: Is Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific ready for potential monkeypox virus outbreaks?

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: The potential role of cultural and religious healing practices in shaping community vulnerability to highly infectious diseases in western Kenya

The Lancet Global Health • Article***EPICENTRE AUTHOR***: Evaluation of a decentralised model of care on case isolation and patient outcomes during the 2018–20 Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo: a retrospective observational study

 

Malaria

BMJ Global Health • Article: Health system effectiveness of symptomatic malaria case management in Papua New Guinea

Malaria Journal • Article: WHO malaria nucleic acid amplification test external quality assessment scheme: results of eleven distributions over 6 years

Malaria Journal • Article: Identifying gaps in protection from malaria vector biting in rural Cambodia using an entomological assessment and human behaviour observations

Malaria Journal • Article: Community pharmacists’ knowledge and experience regarding malaria management: a cross-sectional study in Hodeida, Yemen

Malaria Journal • Article: False alarm on a malaria “outbreak” linked to inconsistencies in malaria diagnostic supply: a call to strengthen supply chain management: Sierra Leone, May–July 2023

Malaria Journal • Article: Relationship between unimproved household sanitation facilities and malaria infection among under-five children in Nigeria: insights from Malaria Indicator Survey 2021

Malaria Journal • Article: Evaluation of household coverage with long-lasting insecticidal nets in central Côte d’Ivoire

 

Maternal and child health

The Lancet • Comment: Antenatal multiple micronutrient supplements: time for alignment to support country action

The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health • Comment***EPICENTRE AUTHOR***: Leveraging nutritional rehabilitation and tuberculosis programmes to tackle tuberculosis and severe acute malnutrition in children

The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health • Article : Immunogenicity and safety of a measles and rubella-containing vaccine at age 6 and 9 months in Bangladesh: an open-label, randomised trial

The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health • Comment : Urgently expanding access to improved treatment for children with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis

The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health • Editorial : Spotlighting appendicitis in child and adolescent health

The Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia • Article : Cost-effectiveness analysis of two integrated early childhood development programs into Bangladeshi primary health-care services

The Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia • Article : Evaluation of low-cost techniques to detect sickle cell disease and β-thalassemia: an open-label, international, multicentre study

The BMJ • News: Aid cuts threaten decades of progress in reducing child deaths and stillbirths, warns UN

BMJ Global Health • Article: Seasonality of underweight among infants 1–11 months old in Niger: an exploratory analysis of data from a cluster-randomised trial

PLOS Medicine • Article: Effect of midwife-led pelvic floor muscle training on prolapse symptoms and quality of life in women with pelvic organ prolapse in Ethiopia: A Cluster-randomized controlled trial

 

Mental health

The Lancet Psychiatry • Comment : India's mental health budget 2025 needs urgent reform

 

Neglected tropical diseases

PLOS Neglecred Tropical Diseases • Article: Integrated rapid risk assessment for dengue fever in settings with limited diagnostic capacity and uncertain exposure: Development of a methodological framework for Tanzania

PLOS Neglecred Tropical Diseases • Article: Evaluation of a rapid lateral flow assay for the detection of taeniosis and cysticercosis at district hospital level in Tanzania: A prospective multicentre diagnostic accuracy study

PLOS Neglecred Tropical Diseases • Article: Prevalence, common helminthes, and factors associated with helminthes among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic at a tertiary hospital in Uganda

 

Non-communicable diseases

The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology • Correspondence : Mpox and diabetes: a needed public health research agenda

The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology • Correspondence : Type 1 diabetes screening: need for ethical, equity, and health systems perspective

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Factors associated with total cholesterol and blood glucose levels among Afghan people aged 18–69 years old: Evidence from a national survey

 

Sexual and reproductive health

BMJ Global Health • Article: Optimising adolescents and young adults’ utilisation of sexual and reproductive health and HIV services in Chad: a sensemaking approach

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Tackling gender-based violence in public health workplaces in India: A call for systemic change

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Intimate partner violence among Nepalese women and associated factors in 2021–2022

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Leveraging faith-leaders to prevent violence against women and girls: A qualitative study of evangelical faith-leaders’ perceptions in Woliso, Ethiopia

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Eclampsia among adolescent mothers in low- and middle-Income countries

 

Tuberculosis

The Lancet Respiratory Health • Comment : Unveiling a hidden phenotype of early tuberculosis

The Lancet Respiratory Health • News : End of USAID leaves enormous funding shortfall for TB

BMJ Global Health • Article: The long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tuberculosis care and infection control measures in anti-retroviral therapy (ART) clinics in low- and middle-income countries: a multiregional site survey in Asia and Africa

BMJ Global Health • Commentry: Thinking fast and slow: the urgency of crisis response must not lead us to overlook chronic needs such as tuberculosis

 

Vaccines

The Lancet • Article: Safety and immunogenicity of a pentavalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine targeting serogroups A, C, W, Y, and X when co-administered with routine childhood vaccines at ages 9 months and 15 months in Mali: a single-centre, double-blind, randomised, controlled, phase 3, non-inferiority trial

The Lancet • Comment: Another step towards defeating meningitis

The BMJ • News: Gavi’s funding is axed as Trump shuts down research on covid and pandemic threats

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Cholera vaccines for the rich, cholera for the poor: While the global cholera vaccine stockpile runs dry, a booming market for high-income countries exemplifies the chasm between commercial interests and global health needs

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Childhood vaccination trends among the Maasai nomadic pastoralists: Insights from a community-based vaccine registry in Kenya