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

25 September 2026

MSF Scientific Days is back for 2027, taking place in London and online on Thursday 29 April! Save the date, and register your interest to stay up to date with the latest MSF Scientific Days news and event details.

As we look ahead to next year, revisit MSF Scientific Days 2026 in the latest PLOS Speaking of Medicine and Health blog post, reflecting on key themes and research findings from this year’s event.

This week, in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, MSF co-authored an article evaluating noninvasive tests for diagnosing visceral leishmaniasis in people living with HIV in Ethiopia. Researchers found that combining urine and blood tests could reduce the need for invasive diagnostic procedures, offering a safer and more resource efficient approach to diagnosis.

In The Lancet Global Health, Epicentre contributed to research validating a treatment decision algorithm for diagnosing tuberculosis in children living with HIV across four African countries. Combining clinical symptoms, rapid diagnostic testing, and medical imaging, the tool successfully identified most children with tuberculosis and supported rapid treatment initiation.

Finally, Epicentre and MSF co-authored research in the Journal of Medical Virologyevaluating dried blood spots for hepatitis E testing during an outbreak in South Sudan. The findings support their use for outbreak surveillance where conventional blood sampling and cold chain transport are challenging.

The Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (RSTMH) Annual Meeting takes place in London on 15–16 October, exploring Equitable Partnerships in Global Health. The two-day programme brings together perspectives from research, clinical practice, policy, funding, and programme delivery.Register and view the full programme.

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: Investigating the role of a non-synonymous mutation at dhfr codon 50 in maintaining sulphadoxine–pyrimethamine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum: a modelling study

PLOS Medicine • Article: Predicting resistance to fluoroquinolones among patients with rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis: A cross-country validation study

Tropical Medicine & International Health • Article: Patterns of Drug Resistance, Drug Resistance Conferring Mutations and Genomic DNA Methylation Revealed in Mycobacterium tuberculosis From South Africa

TRSTMH • Article: Suboptimal management of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia: a retrospective case series from a Nigerian tertiary hospital

BMC Health Services Research • Article: Mapping system dynamics shaping neonatal infection prevention and antimicrobial stewardship in Botswana

Climate change and Planetary Health

The Lancet Planetary Health • Article: Premature mortality and economic losses attributable to landscape fire-related PM2·5 in ten countries and territories: a causal analysis

The Lancet Oncology • Article: Long-term exposure to wildfire-related PM2·5 and overall survival of older patients with lung cancer: a retrospective, registry-based cohort study

Global health

The Lancet Global Health • Article: Global inequalities in cardiometabolic care and achievable cardiovascular risk reduction by wealth, region, and sex: a pooled analysis of individual participant data from 76 countries

The Lancet Regional Health • Article: Iodine nutrition, thyroid function, and thyroid autoimmunity four decades after Universal Salt Iodisation in India: a cross-sectional study among schoolchildren (ICMR-SALT-T 1)