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

9 October 2026

Ahead of World Mental Health Day on Saturday 10 October, we’re highlighting MSF’s mental health work around the world.

In 2025, MSF teams provided more than 548,000 individual mental health consultations, supporting people affected by conflict, displacement, violence, disease and other crises. Read more about MSF’s mental health work.

Don't forget to save the date for MSF Scientific Days 2027, taking place on Thursday 29 April 2027, in London and online. Call for abstracts is open until Sunday 6 December 2026 – submit your research, evidence or innovation here.

This week, in Antimicrobial Resistance & Infection Control, an MSF study describes an outbreak of multidrug-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae in a neonatal unit in Central African Republic, where mortality among infected newborns was 3.5 times higher than among other neonates admitted to the unit. The study highlights the critical role of access to microbiology and practical infection prevention and control (IPC) measures in identifying and managing outbreaks.

In Global Health Action, MSF-authored research across five primary healthcare facilities in rural Malawi found that shifting point-of-care testing for AHD, HIV, syphilis, hepatitis B, and malaria to trained lay health workers nearly doubled testing volumes across diseases. The findings highlight how task-shifting can expand access to diagnostics in resource-limited settings.

Finally, in The Lancet Global Health, one of the first quantitative real-world studies of US funding cuts to HIV services found severe and sustained declines in prevention, testing and treatment in Uganda and Zimbabwe. An accompanying Comment highlights the disproportionate impact on key populations and risk to hard-won gains in HIV epidemic control.

Best regards,

Maya Fenyk, 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 2026 conference.

Antimicrobial resistance

The Lancet Microbe • Article: Host and environmental factors associated with upper respiratory tract mycobiota in healthy individuals: a cross-sectional observational stud

The Lancet Microbe • Article: A competitive BB-ELISA for anti-toxin B neutralising antibodies in assessing risk of recurrent Clostridioides difficile infection: a retrospective cohort study from the MODIFY I and II trials

Clinical Infectious Diseases • Article: Antimicrobials in a Box: A Primer on the Risks of Direct-to-Consumer Antimicrobial Preparedness Kits

Clinical Infectious Diseases • Article: Turning Genomic Insights into Action: Interrupting Healthcare-Associated Mycobacterium abscessus Transmission Through Hospital Water Mitigation

Global Public Health • Comment: Antimicrobial resistance and social inequity: Why the one health approach must centre poverty

Climate change and planetary health

The Lancet Regional Health • Article: Outpatient opioid dispensing during the 2024 floods in Southern Brazil: a population-based ecological time-series analysis

The Lancet Planetary Health • Article: Deforestation and retail prices of Brazilian beef: a preregistered product-level econometric analysis

Global Public Health • Article: Stunting in indigenous Waorani children living near the oil-extraction sites: What can the determinants of health tell us about this?

Conflict, migration and health

BMJ Global Health • Article: Care under attack: a qualitative study of healthcare system disruption and health worker resilience during airstrikes on Lebanon