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

18 April 2025

This week, in Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, MSF and Epicentre reported that patients with fluoroquinolone-resistant multidrug-resistant tuberculosis treated with bedaquiline (BDQ) developed high rates of BDQ resistance during treatment, despite low baseline levels. These findings highlight the urgent need for improved detection and monitoring, as BDQ resistance is linked to poor outcomes. In npj Antimicrobials and Resistance, an MSF comment piece discussed the urgency of addressing antimicrobial resistance in conflict and disaster settings through context-specific, transdisciplinary approaches, drawing on community knowledge.

In PLOS Global Public Health, MSF found a high prevalence of scabies in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, highlighting the challenges of treatment and control in overcrowded, resource-limited settings. In BMJ Global Health, MSF contributed to a scoping review identifying core components that can be used as a basis for operationalising and measuring community resilience to health emergencies.

Finally, in AIDS and Behaviour, Epicentre examined the impact of COVID-19 stressors on people living with HIV (PLWH), finding associations with increased distress, psychological growth, and substance use. Healthcare providers must be aware of these social and psychological challenges, as they can affect continued engagement with care.  

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 Infectious Disease • Correspondence: Operationalising antimicrobial resistance surveillance data in conflict areas

The Lancet Infectious Disease • Article: Designing better systems to navigate the sepsis–antimicrobial stewardship tension

BMJ Global Health • Article: Epidemiology of sepsis in hospitalised neonates in Indonesia: high burden of multidrug-resistant infections reveals poor coverage provided by recommended antibiotic regimens

npj Antimicrobials and Resistance • Commentary***MSF AUTHOR***: Unravelling the linkages between conflict and antimicrobial resistance

Antimicrobial Chemotherapy • Article***MSF AUTHOR***: Phenotypic and genotypic resistance to bedaquiline in patients with multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis—experiences from Armenia

 

Climate change and Planetary Health

The BMJ • Article: Climate activists should be applauded as advocates for public health

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Nurturing care as a critical buffer against climate change impacts on child development

 

Conflict, migration and health

The BMJ • Opinion***MENTIONS MSF***: The healthcare community has a responsibility to highlight the ongoing destruction in Gaza

BMJ Global Health • Review***MSF AUTHOR***: Community resilience to health emergencies: a scoping review

PLOS Global Public Health • Article***MSF AUTHOR***: High caseload of Scabies amongst Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh: A retrospective analysis of the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of cases, July 2022 to November 2023

 

Global health

The BMJ • Letter: Reforming diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives to prioritise evidence based strategies

BMJ Global Health • Article: Is ‘gender equality in health’ the right goal? Exploring issues of definition and measurement

BMJ Global Health • Article: Community resilience to health emergencies: a scoping review

 

HIV

The Lancet • Comment: A turning point for global health: challenge or opportunity?Accelerating vaccine development in Africa: lessons from HIV research

The Lancet • Correspondence: Accelerating domestic investments to end AIDS in Africa

The Lancet • other: Protecting Africa's children from extreme risk: a runway of sustainability for PEPFAR programmes

The Lancet Public Health • Article: Effect of extending PrEP initiation to primary care settings: a nationwide cohort study in France

The Lancet Public Health • Comment: Extending PrEP access and coverage in France

BMJ Global Health • Article: Intersectional forces of urban inequality and the global HIV pandemic: a retrospective analysis

BMJ Global Health • Article: Impact of increasing CD4 count threshold eligibility for antiretroviral therapy initiation on advanced HIV disease and tuberculosis prevalence and incidence in South Africa: an interrupted time series analysis

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Barriers and facilitators to oral pre-exposure prophylaxis uptake among adolescents girls and young women at elevated risk of HIV acquisition in Lilongwe, Malawi: A qualitative study

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Improving the efficiency of the regulatory approvals of HIV in vitro diagnostics in low- and middle-income countries: Perspective of the IAS Industry Liaison Forum diagnostic partners

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Field validation and application of the luminex triplex HIV assay to estimate HIV prevalence and HIV-1 incidence in Nigeria

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Bridging the gap: Enhancing HIV care pathways for young key populations in Chad

AIDS and Behavior • Article***MSF AUTHOR***: Exposure to COVID-19 Pandemic-Related Stressors and Their Association With Distress, Psychological Growth and Drug Use in People With HIV in Nouvelle Aquitaine, France (ANRS CO3 AQUIVIH-NA Cohort-QuAliV-QuAliCOV Study)

 

Infectious diseases

The Lancet • Article: Clinical presentation and epidemiological assessment of confirmed human mpox cases in DR Congo: a surveillance-based observational study

The Lancet • Comment: Integrating research into surveillance: enhancing the response to mpox

The Lancet • Comment: Measles: the urgent need for global immunisation and preparedness

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Infectious diseases burden and antibiotic prescribing patterns among primary care patients in Harare, Zimbabwe – a cross-sectional analysis

 

Malaria

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Trends in malaria prevalence among school-age children in Mainland Tanzania, 2015–2023: A multilevel survey analysis

Transactions RSTMH • Article: Investigating Pfk13 mutations in Plasmodium falciparumnatural populations from two malaria-endemic areas of Cameroon 

Malaria Journal • Article: Longitudinal field evaluation of outdoor Anopheles and non-Anopheles host-seeking in response to a volatile pyrethroid spatial emanator (SE) product among forest-dwelling indigenous residents of Sumatra, Indonesia

Malaria Journal • Case Study: A case of an asymptomatic Plasmodium falciparum infection followed by a symptomatic Plasmodium ovale infection in a soldier deployed to South Sudan

Malaria Journal • Review: Strengthening local capacity for mathematical modelling in low- and middle-income countries: the process and lessons learnt in implementing the first cohort of Nigeria malaria modelling fellowships

Malaria Journal • Article: Performance of rapid diagnostic tests, microscopy, and qPCR for detection of Plasmodium parasites among community members with or without symptoms of malaria in villages located in North-western Tanzania

 

Maternal and child health

The Lancet • Comment: Strengthening health systems and accountability: Senegal's path to success in reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health

The Lancet • Comment: Broken promises: the USA foreign aid freeze threatens women's, children's, and adolescents' health

The Lancet • Review: The 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown to 2030 for women's, children's, and adolescents' health: tracking progress on health and nutrition

The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology • Comment: New opportunities to prevent inequalities in child development?

The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology • Article: Association between maternal diabetes and neurodevelopmental outcomes in children: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 202 observational studies comprising 56·1 million pregnancies

The Lancet Global Health • Editorial: Renewing our commitment to maternal and newborn survival

The Lancet Global Health • Comment: Mothers deserve better: evidence-based strategies to address maternal mortality

The BMJ • Letter: Racialised health inequalities in maternity care

BMJ Global Health • Article: Benefit–cost analysis of an integrated package of interventions during preconception, pregnancy and early childhood in India

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Intimate partner violence during pregnancy and its association with pregnancy and childbirth complications: A prospective cohort study

 

Neglected tropical diseases

The Lancet HIV • Comment: Deworming of filariasis and reduction of HIV incidence

The Lancet HIV • Article: Impact of quasi-elimination of Wuchereria bancrofti on HIV incidence in southwest Tanzania: a 12-year prospective cohort study

PLOS Neglected Tropical Disease • Article: Point-of-care ultrasound reveals extensive pathology in Gabonese preschool-age children with urogenital schistosomiasis

PLOS Neglected Tropical Disease • Article: Significant Serpents: Predictive Modelling of Bioclimatic Venom Variation in Russell’s Viper

PLOS Neglected Tropical Disease • Article: Verifying interruption of transmission or elimination of Schistosoma japonicum must consider schistosome infections in wild rodents

PLOS Neglected Tropical Disease • Article: Immunogenicity of a single dose of the 17DD yellow fever vaccine in a cohort of adults and children in a non-endemic area, and its association with dengue and Zika seropositivity

PLOS Neglected Tropical Disease • Article: Recombinant antigen-based lateral flow tests for the detection of Strongyloides stercoralis infection

PLOS Neglected Tropical Disease • Article: Use of sequential lateral flow assays to diagnose cryptococcal infection among people living with HIV in Monrovia, Liberia

PLOS Neglected Tropical Disease • Article: Development and evaluation of fluorescent recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA)-based method for rapid detection of Necator americanus

PLOS Neglected Tropical Disease • Article: Diagnostic performance of a novel point-of-care test for the diagnosis of visceral leishmaniasis in Sudan: A Comparative Accuracy Study

PLOS Neglected Tropical Disease • Article: Refugees/Immigrants and leishmaniasis in the world’s largest hosting country, Türkiye: A systematic review

PLOS Neglected Tropical Disease • Article: “Survey on the burden, epidemiological and clinical characteristics of snakebite envenoming in the Health Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS) of Taabo (Southern Côte d’Ivoire)”

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: High caseload of Scabies amongst Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh: A retrospective analysis of the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of cases, July 2022 to November 2023

Transactions RSTMH • Article: Are intestinal parasites in dogs an infection risk to children in the same household? An investigation in Cuba

Transactions RSTMH • Article: Orthohantavirus seoulense as a cause of acute, dengue-negative febrile illness in southern Vietnam 

 

Tuberculosis

The Lancet • Comment: Tuberculosis: a threat to health security in the European region and the collective actions needed

BMJ Global Health • Comment: Tuberculosis and the climate crisis in Latin America: a predicament of poverty, migration and displacement

BMJ Global Health • Article: Impact of all-oral bedaquiline-based shorter regimens in the treatment of drug-resistant tuberculosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis

PLOS Neglected Tropical Disease • Article: Knowledge and awareness of bovine tuberculosis associated with raw milk and under-cooked meat contamination among cattle farmers in selected parts of zambia

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: The Accuracy of the Uganda National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Program diagnostic algorithm and the World Health Organisation treatment decision algorithms for childhood tuberculosis: A retrospective analysis

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Fighting tuberculosis hand in hand: A call to engage communities affected by TB as essential partners in research

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Improving tuberculosis diagnosis in South Africa’s private sector: The results of a pilot public-private mix intervention in eThekwini health district

 

Vaccines

BMJ Global Health • Article: Estimating the effects of interventions on increasing vaccination: systematic review and meta-analysis

JAMA • Viewpoint: Approaches for MMR Vaccination During a Measles Outbreak and Evolving Domestic Attitudes

PLOS Global Public Health • Article: Cost-effectiveness analysis of alternative infant and neonatal rotavirus vaccination schedules in Malawi

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