Global health review

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

29 May 2026

Missed MSF Scientific Days 2026? The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene has published a blog reflecting on the event's key themes and discussions, describing it as "a timely reminder of how scientific evidence, when created and shared with integrity, can directly catalyse positive change in global health". Stay tuned to catch up on recordings and other MSF Scientific Days content on the MSF Science Portal.

This week, in Archives of Disease in Childhood, MSF and Epicentre co-contributed to a systematic review and meta-analysis comparing intravenous and oral rehydration strategies in children with severe malnutrition and severe dehydration. The authors found no clear difference in mortality between the two approaches, although intravenous rehydration was associated with fewer adverse events.

A global systematic review and meta-analysis with MSF contribution in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, found that newer all-oral regimens for drug-resistant tuberculosis in children and adolescents are both effective and generally well tolerated.

In The Pan African Medical Journal, a study from Chad's N'Djamena North District reported that self-medication is common among pregnant women, with both health system barriers and behavioural factors contributing to the practice and underscoring the need for improved prenatal education.

Finally, MSF contributed to a perspective in Nature Medicine highlighting how limited access to quality diagnostic tests continues to hinder health outcomes and resilience to disease outbreaks across Africa. The authors call for context-specific health system strengthening measures to support greater self-reliance in health security and progress towards universal health coverage across the region.

Best regards,

Clara von Kaehne, Rosie Wharton, Lillian Matthes, and Holly Baker with MSF-authored article assistance from Alys Barton and 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.

Climate change and planetary health

PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases • Article: Climate change induced complex shifts in snake distributions expose people to snakebite and threaten biodiversity

Global Public Health • Article: Health system response to climate-related shocks in a lower-middle-income country setting: A comparative study of floods and droughts in Pakistan

BMC Health Services Research • Article: Healthcare system preparedness as a mediating factor in climate-driven tuberculosis outcomes: an ecological study

Conflict, migration and health

The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Women's Health • Article: Association of armed conflict with extreme preterm birth and pre-eclampsia and eclampsia in Ukraine, 2022–24: a repeated cross-sectional national surveillance study

The BMJ • Opinion: Fear as policy: the health harms of immigration enforcement

The Lancet • Series***MENTIONS MSF***: John Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health - LancetCommission on health, conflict, and forced displacement: health in a world of crises and impunity

The Lancet • Series: A much-needed reboot for international solidarity

The Lancet • Series: Transforming the humanitarian system

The Lancet • Series: Transforming the humanitarian system: our role to confront embedded inequities

The Lancet • Series: Making mutual aid the architecture of humanitarian response