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Khabre desk
Recent reporting, analysis and explainers from the Public Health desk.
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Clinical psychologist Manasi Kumar argues that climate loss-and-damage policy should recognize and measure mental-health harms alongside damage to livelihoods, ecosystems and cultural ties. Her Nature World View draws on experiences in coastal Kenya and Gujarat.
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A US county-level analysis found that the way daily PM2.5 concentrations were distributed through the year added mortality-predictive information beyond the annual average. The study was posted as a medRxiv preprint and estimates predictive performance rather than a causal effect on individual mortality.
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A BMJ opinion article argues that reproductive, maternal and community health services should be funded as essential climate adaptation infrastructure. It highlights how climate shocks can disrupt care and deepen risks for women and marginalised communities.
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A letter in The BMJ argues that similar findings across maternity reviews over 11 years point to problems shared across the maternity system, rather than isolated hospital failures.
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Authorities in Karnataka are investigating a suspected counterfeit-medicine racket after drugs and packaging materials worth nearly ₹50 million were seized near Bengaluru. Related raids were then conducted in 10 other Indian states.
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A BMJ editorial argues that major risks are often worsened when organisations fail to act on warning signs. It connects concerns about AI, vaccine safety surveillance and NHS management to weaknesses in risk escalation and accountability.
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A surveillance-based modeling study estimates that a 2020 mass oral cholera vaccination campaign in Uvira, Democratic Republic of the Congo, averted 56% of infections and deaths over the following three years. The preprint estimates that 2,350 facility-attended cases and 44 facility and community deaths were prevented.
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A BMJ obituary recalls Hazel Thornton’s 1991 decision to decline a clinical trial for ductal carcinoma in situ and her campaign for informed choice in medical care. Her experience highlighted how treatment uncertainty should be communicated to patients considering research participation.
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The Thirlwall Public Inquiry found that doctors’ concerns about Lucy Letby were dismissed at the Countess of Chester Hospital and that earlier police involvement might have saved some babies. It recommended tighter neonatal monitoring, insulin-access controls and a barring system for NHS managers dismissed for serious misconduct.
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Pennsylvania has reported a fourth measles-associated death, involving an 18-year-old, according to a 16 September 2026 report in The BMJ. The deaths are not included in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national measles mortality tally.
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A survey reported by The BMJ suggests that more than half of England’s integrated care systems lack enough capacity to diagnose childhood asthma in line with current guidelines. The guidelines recommend fractional exhaled nitric oxide testing as the first-line diagnostic test for children with a history of asthma.
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A preprint study of 1,268 South African adolescent girls found that DXA-measured body composition, particularly central fat distribution, is associated with elevated blood pressure. The findings highlight the importance of body composition balance and modifiable factors like sedentary behaviour.
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A secondary analysis of Nigeria’s 2023–24 Demographic and Health Survey found that 72% of mothers attended antenatal care, but only 12.3% were tested for hepatitis B there. Infant birth-dose coverage was 55%.
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A letter in The BMJ argues that bereaved families must remain central to efforts to improve maternity safety. It highlights recurring system failures identified by UK maternity inquiries, including staffing, leadership, communication and delayed escalation.
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A medRxiv preprint uses an agent-based model to link mpox clade IIb’s persistence to asynchronous transmission across connected global sexual-contact networks. The model estimates that local extinction became much less likely when transmission continued in other regions and later re-entered Europe.
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A medRxiv preprint describes severe neuroimaging access constraints in Chad, where one older 0.35 T MRI scanner serves a population of about 21 million. The analysis identifies cost, centralisation, unreliable electricity, maintenance support and workforce shortages as linked barriers.
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A medRxiv preprint reports that none of 7,388 people screened across 12 local government areas in Nigeria’s Osun State tested positive for circulating filarial antigen. The researchers say the result supports progression to the first transmission assessment survey, while chronic elephantiasis cases still showed substantial blood-count abnormalities.
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A longitudinal analysis of 188 countries from 2000 to 2023 found that Hib and pneumococcal conjugate vaccine introduction was associated with lower meningitis disability-adjusted life-year rates. The largest reported association was in the African meningitis belt, although the study describes the results as population-level vaccine-associated changes rather than strictly causal effects.
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A longitudinal analysis of 3,792 people found that more periods outside education, employment or training between ages 16 and 33 were associated with poorer mental-health outcomes at age 33. The findings come from a medRxiv preprint based on the ALSPAC birth cohort.
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A medRxiv preprint links the timing of early-life exposure to mixtures of nine metals with risk-taking, reward sensitivity and task-related brain activity in adolescents from a Mexico City birth cohort. The observational findings come from tooth biomarkers and functional MRI data.
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A medRxiv preprint finds that Ethiopia’s current meningococcal surveillance cannot determine whether protection from the MenAfriVac campaign is waning or which non-A serogroups are circulating. An indirect model estimates population protection fell from 85% in 2015 to 24% in 2024.
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A UK analysis of around 980,000 adults found that people reporting six or more cups of tea or coffee at “very hot” temperatures had three times the risk of oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma compared with those reporting warm drinks. The result came from more than 10 years of health-record follow-up and describes an association.
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A medRxiv preprint reports a ligation-mediated PCR method that used long-read sequencing to resolve genomic contexts around four clinically relevant antibiotic-resistance genes in wastewater. Across 13 Washington state treatment plants sampled twice, the method found distinct context clusters, including 11 putatively novel qnrS-associated clusters.