Global health review
A weekly round-up of all the latest global health research from MSF projects and beyond
25 July 2025
This week in The BMJ, MSF reports from the ongoing genocide in Gaza, highlighting record numbers of malnutrition cases. The two MSF clinics have treated over 700 pregnant and breastfeeding women and nearly 500 children with severe or moderate malnutrition this month.
In The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, MSF and Epicentre report the results of the endTB-Q trial comparing a 6- to 9-month all-oral regimen of bedaquiline, delamanid, linezolid, and clofazimine (BDLC) with standard care for pre-extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (pre-XDR TB). While BDLC was as effective as standard care in limited disease, higher relapse and drug resistance in pre-XDR TB suggest longer or reinforced treatment may be needed. In European Respiratory Journal, MSF identify a dosing and duration tapering strategy for linezolid as an optimal approach for short-course, all-oral multidrug-resistant and rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis treatment, outlining high success rates with fewer severe adverse events.
In Oxford Medical Case Reports, MSF describe a woman in her twenties presenting with a large tumour on the palm of her hand at a clinic in a displacement camp in eastern DRC. The case highlights how conflict-related damage to primary care can significantly delay diagnosis and treatment, underscoring the need for stronger health systems in war zones to reduce morbidity from neglected surgical diseases.
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.
Antimicrobial resistance
The Lancet • Comment: Integrating gender and equity commitments in the revised global action plan on antimicrobial resistance
Climate change and Planetary Health
The Lancet • Perspectives: John Amuasi: calling for a socioecological approach to One Health
The Lancet • Comment: Connecting planetary boundaries and planetary health: a resilient and stable Earth system is crucial for human health
The Lancet Planetary Health • Comment: Health workforce as a climate and health priority in nationally determined contributions
The Lancet Planetary Health • Viewpoint: DDT: last mile in the global phase-out of its use for disease vector control?
The Lancet Planetary Health • Comment: Climate change, development, and resilience: a warning from Turkana, Kenya
The BMJ Global Health • Article: Inadequate last-mile pharmaceutical waste management is a neglected threat to environmental and public health: a call to action
Conflict, migration and health
The Lancet Public Health • Viewpoint: Universal health coverage in the context of migration and displacement: a cosmopolitan perspective
The BMJ • Feature***MENTIONS MSF***: Gaza: MSF sees record number of malnourished babies, begs countries to take medical evacuees
Conflict and Health • Article: Integration of Refugees into National Health Systems: Enhancing Equity and Strengthening Sustainable Health Services for All
Oxford Medical Case Reports • Article***MSF AUTHOR***: Large hand mass due to poor primary care access in an internally displaced person in the DRC: a case report
Journal of Asian Public Policy • Article***MSF AUTHOR***: Humanitarianism and the fourth industrial revolution: saving which lives?
Global health
PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Determinants of access to basic handwashing facilities and handwashing with soap in low-income areas of four Kenyan cities
HIV
The Lancet • Comment: Global HIV targets: a roadmap to 2030 and beyond
The BMJ Global Health • Article: Social-ecological predictors of HIV testing among adult men: analysis of the 2022 Tanzania demographic and health survey data
Infectious diseases
The Lancet Infectious Diseases • Article: A call to move beyond MSM-centric framing in mpox research
PLOS Global Public Health • Opinion: Integration as a legacy of Africa’s mpox response
Malaria
The Lancet Infectious Diseases • Article: The impact of sulfadoxine–pyrimethamine resistance on the effectiveness of intermittent preventive treatment for the prevention of malaria in pregnancy in Africa: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis
The BMJ Global Health • Article: The malaria care cascade and factors associated with receiving a malaria test in children under 5 years of age and pregnant women with fever: a cross-sectional household survey from three regions in Guinea and three districts in Sierra Leone in 2022
Malaria Journal • Article: A power analysis framework to aid the design of robust semi-field vector control experiments
Malaria Journal • Article: Evaluation of anti-malarial treatment for elimination of malaria in South West Ethiopia: a concurrent triangulation design for prompt decision
Malaria Journal • Article: Malaria epidemics and its drivers in Uganda in 2022
Malaria Journal • Article: Barriers to effective usage of insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNS) among women of reproductive age in Tanzania: a national cross-sectional survey
Maternal and child health
The BMJ Global Health • Article: Brazil’s Bolsa Família conditional cash transfer and child malnutrition: a nationwide birth cohort study
The BMJ Global Health • Article: Evaluation of a multicomponent child development intervention delivered through the government health system: a feasibility study
The BMJ Global Health • Article: Risk factors of under-five mortality in Tanzania: insights from the Tanzania Demographic and Health Survey 2022
The BMJ Global Health • Article: Aflatoxin exposure and mortality in acutely ill children: results from the CHAIN network cohort
NEJM • Perspectives: Brain Death in Pregnancy — Abortion, Advance-Directive, or End-of-Life Law?
PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Reimagining Black maternal health narratives: Embracing a Vitality Framework for joy, liberation, and healing
PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Models of care for Indigenous children in rural and remote settings: A global scoping review
PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Measuring respectful maternal and newborn care in Nepal: Comparing linked observation and interview data- prospective cohort study
Conflict and Health • Article: Exploring maternal and neonatal health in a conflict-affected setting: cross-sectional findings from Gaza
Current Development in Nutrition • Article***MSF AUTHOR***: Acceptability of a Microbiome-Directed Food for the Management of Children with Uncomplicated Acute Malnutrition in Maradi, Niger: Two Randomized Crossover Trials
Mental health
The Lancet Public Health • Editorial: Social health—the neglected third pillar
Conflict and Health • Article: Prevalence and correlates of anxiety, depression, and symptoms of trauma among Palestinian adults in Gaza after a year of war: a cross-sectional study
Neglected tropical diseases
The Lancet Infectious Diseases • Article: Efficacy and safety of moxidectin–albendazole combination therapy for Trichuris trichiura infections in school-aged children: a double-blind, randomised, controlled, superiority trial
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Enhanced rabies surveillance in roadkill specimens by real-time RT-PCR
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Viewpoint: Country-level indices in predictive models of helminth infections: Perspectives from Southeast Asia
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Promising therapeutic efficacy of nitazoxanide-loaded zinc oxide nano-formula against intestinal and muscular phases of experimental trichinellosis
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Contributions of different host species to the natural transmission of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus in China
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Genetic shifts of Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) in mosquitoes in the Republic of Korea, 2017–2022
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Identifying key aspects to enhance predictive modeling for early identification of schistosomiasis hotspots to guide mass drug administration
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Chikungunya in a pediatric cohort: Asymptomatic infection, seroconversion, and chronicity rates
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Large-scale epidemiology of opisthorchiasis in 21 provinces in Thailand based on diagnosis by fecal egg examination and urine antigen assay and analysis of risk factors for infection
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: High prevalence of Strongyloides stercoralis in people living with HIV: A critical health challenge in the Peruvian Amazon Basin
Tropical Medicine and International Health • Article: Prevalence and risk factors for murine typhus, scrub typhus and spotted fever group rickettsioses among adolescent and adult patients presenting to Yangon General Hospital, Yangon, Myanmar
Transactions RSTMH • Article: Cohort study of human infection by Leishmania (L.) infantum chagasi in southern Honduras, Central America
Transactions RSTMH • Article: Investing in traditional medicine: leveraging evidence and innovative research to strengthen the fight against malaria in Nigeria
Non-communicable diseases
PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Bending the curve: Modeling the impact of reducing risk factors for noncommunicable diseases to control future health expenditures in Latin America and the Caribbean
Tuberculosis
The Lancet Respiratory Medicine • Comment***MSF AUTHOR***: endTB-Q results in the face of rising bedaquiline resistance
The Lancet Respiratory Medicine • Article***MSF AUTHOR***: Bedaquiline, delamanid, linezolid, and clofazimine for rifampicin-resistant and fluoroquinolone-resistant tuberculosis (endTB-Q): an open-label, multicentre, stratified, non-inferiority, randomised, controlled, phase 3 trial
PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Within-country heterogeneity in patterns of social contact relevant for tuberculosis infection transmission, prevention, and care
PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Engaging communities in the control of arboviral diseases: insights from the African region
European Respiratory Journal • Article***MSF AUTHOR***: Optimal dosing and duration of linezolid for the treatment of multidrug-resistant and rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis: An individual patient data meta-analysis
Vaccines
The Lancet Infectious Diseases • Comment: The challenges of immunobridging without established correlates of vaccine-induced protection
The Lancet Infectious Diseases • Article: Human papillomavirus (HPV) type 16 and type 18 antibody concentrations after a single dose of bivalent HPV vaccine in girls aged 9–14 years compared with three doses of quadrivalent HPV vaccine in women aged 18–25 years in Costa Rica (PRIMAVERA): a non-randomised, open-label, immunobridging, non-inferiority trial
PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Perceived shifts in routine vaccine confidence during the COVID-19 pandemic in Kinshasa Province, DRC: A mixed-methods approach