Non-fatal outcomes of disease and injury increasingly detract from the ability of the world’s population to live in full health, a trend largely attributable to an epidemiological transition in many countries from causes aff ecting children, to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) more common in adults. For the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2015 (GBD 2015), we estimated the incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for diseases and injuries at the global, regional, and national scale over the period of 1990 to 2015.

Each year, about 210 million women become pregnant and about 140 million newborn babies are delivered. The sheer scale of maternal health issues makes maternal well being and survival vital concerns. A decade after The Lancet published a Series on maternal survival, a new Series of six papers brings our knowledge of maternal health, its epidemiology, successes, and current failings together, and at a crucial time within the sustainable development framework to 2030.

WHO recommends combinations of an artemisinin derivative plus an antimalarial drug of longer half-life as treatment options for uncomplicated Plasmodium falciparum infection. In Africa, artemether–lumefantrine is the most widely used artemisinin-based combination therapy, whereas artesunate–mefl oquine is used infrequently because of a perceived poor tolerance to mefl oquine. WHO recommends reconsideration of the use of artesunate– mefl oquine in Africa.

The prison setting presents not only challenges, but also opportunities, for the prevention and treatment of HIV, viral hepatitis, and tuberculosis. We did a comprehensive literature search of data published between 2005 and 2015 to understand the global epidemiology of HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), and tuberculosis in prisoners. We further modelled the contribution of imprisonment and the potential impact of prevention interventions on HIV transmission in this population.

The epidemic of microcephaly in Brazil has been declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by WHO.1 The declaration states that a causal relationship between Zika virus infection during pregnancy and microcephaly is strongly suspected, although not yet scientifically proven.1 The hesitancy to accept causation in the presence of much epidemiological circumstantial evidence is due to the paucity of laboratory confirmation of Zika virus in affected neonates. Here, we report the serological confirmation of Zika virus infection in the CNS of 30 neonates with microcephaly.

In the past several years, as worldwide morbidity and mortality due to malaria have continued to decrease, the global malaria community has grown increasingly supportive of the idea of malaria eradication.

International studies of the health of Indigenous and tribal peoples provide important public health insights. Reliable data are required for the development of policy and health services. Previous studies document poorer outcomes for Indigenous peoples compared with benchmark populations, but have been restricted in their coverage of countries or the range of health indicators. Our objective is to describe the health and social status of Indigenous and tribal peoples relative to benchmark populations from a sample of countries.

China, India and USA are among the top three countries with a high number of diabetic population shows this new study published in Lancet. It finds that there is a fourfold rise in the number of diabetics – from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014.

Underweight and severe and morbid obesity are associated with highly elevated risks of adverse health outcomes. The estimated trends in mean body-mass index (BMI), which characterises its population distribution, and in the prevalences of a complete set of BMI categories for adults in all countries.

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Unnecessary antibiotic prescribing contributes to antimicrobial resistance. In this trial, the aimed to reduce unnecessary prescriptions of antibiotics by general practitioners (GPs) in England.

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