Fresh Off The Journal: November 2025

(c) image: Shrenik Sadalgi

A new study with partners in India reveals how the Soliga Adivasi community in Karnataka still faces serious dignity violations in formal health services despite national commitments to universal health care. People report delays, neglect, lack of consent, privacy breaches and culturally insensitive care. These experiences reflect deeper structural injustices linked to displacement, poverty and exclusion from decision-making. The authors call for dignity-centred policies that value Adivasi autonomy and agency.

Putturaj, M., Ns, P., Seshadri, T., C, M., & Van Belle, S. (2025). Between rhetoric and reality: dignified health care for the Soliga Adivasi community in Chamarajanagar district, Karnataka, India. International Journal For Equity in Health, 24(1), 305. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-025-02637-6

(c) image: Randy Olson, Melissa Farlow Photography

A doctoral student from Uganda reveals a stark reality: although 86% of women in Uganda give birth in a facility, only 14% receive all essential interventions, and fewer than half deliver in a facility truly ready to provide quality care. Lower-level government health centres, where most births occur, are the least prepared. The findings expose a major gap between access and actual care, calling for urgent investment in quality, staffing, and equipment.

Turigye, B., Mulogo, E. M., Ngonzi, J., Macharia, P. M., Acheng, M., Christou, A., & Beňová, L. (2025). Beyond facility-based births: Is Uganda delivering effective maternal and newborn care? An analysis of the 2022 demographic health survey and 2023 harmonized health facility assessment survey. PLOS Global Public Health, 5(10), e0004949. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0004949

Generative AI can reproduce harmful colonial stereotypes embedded in historical archives. Researchers asked an image-captioning model to describe photos from “human zoos,” public racist exhibitions of colonised people shown in Europe (including Antwerp) and the US until 1950s. Across 3,800 captions, the AI echoed patterns of essentialism, cultural erasure, dehumanisation, othering and infantilisation. The findings reveal how AI systems can carry colonial logics forward, reinforcing longstanding representational harms.

Alenichev, A., Shaffer, J. D., Kingori, P., Grietens, K. P., Muldoon, J., Rocher, L., Alenichev, A., Shaffer, J. D., Kingori, P., Grietens, K. P., Muldoon, J., & Rocher, L. (2025). ‘We can see a savage’: a case study of the colonial gaze in generative AI algorithms. AI & Society. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-025-02685-0

During the 2022 mpox outbreak in Belgium, ITM scientists from biomedical sciences, clinical sciences and public health worked closely together to understand what was happening and help guide the country’s response. Three years on, that same interdisciplinary collaboration has brought new insights: people who recovered from mpox show strong and lasting immune protection, still detectable two years later. For those who were only vaccinated, immunity fades more quickly, suggesting that boosters may be needed to keep people protected in the long run.

Van Dijck, C., Berens-Riha, N., Zaeck, L. M., Kremer, C., Verschueren, J., Coppens, J., Vanroye, F., Willems, E., Bosman, E., De Cock, N., Smekens, B., Vandenhove, L., Goovaerts, O., Van Hul, A., Wouters, J., Jacobs, B. K. M., Bracke, S., Hens, M., Brosius, I., De Vos, E., Bangwen, E., Houben, S., Tsoumanis, A., Ferreira Dantas, P. H. L., Rutgers, J., Lipman, A., Wijnans, K., Soentjens, P., Bottieau, E., Kenyon, C., van Griensven, J., Reyniers, T., Horst, N., Ariën, K. K., Van Esbroeck, M., Torneri, A., Vercauteren, K., Adriaensen, W., de Vries, R. D., Mariën, J., & Liesenborghs, L. (2025). Long-term consequences of monkeypox virus infection or modified vaccinia virus Ankara vaccination in Belgium (MPX-COHORT and POQS-FU-PLUS): A 24-month prospective and retrospective cohort study. The Lancet Infectious Diseases. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(25)00545-6

A new Nature Reviews Disease Primers article gives a global overview of leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease spread by sandflies that causes either severe visceral infection or disfiguring skin lesions. Diagnosis mostly relies on rapid tests and microscopy of tissue samples. Treatment depends on the form of the disease, with systemic and local therapies used worldwide. South Asia has sharply reduced cases, but sustained elimination efforts in all endemic areas will require better diagnostics, treatments, vector control and vaccine development, alongside strong political and health-system commitment.

Pareyn, M., Alves, F., Burza, S., Chakravarty, J., Alvar, J., Diro, E., Kaye, P. M., & Van Griensven, J. (2025). Leishmaniasis. Nature Reviews Disease Primers, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41572-025-00663-w

In a joint effort between ITM’s Departments of Clinical Sciences and Public Health, researchers warn that tiny amounts of antibiotics in food may play a bigger role in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) than previously recognised. Their Lancet Microbe commentary highlights growing evidence that even “safe” residue levels can select for resistant bacteria in the human gut. They argue that food safety standards should account for AMR selection, not only toxicity, when setting allowable residue limits.

Manoharan-Basil, S. S., Ingelbeen, B., & Kenyon, C. (2025). Residual antimicrobials in food can select for antimicrobial resistance. The Lancet Microbe. Article 101281. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanmic.2025.101281