This review does a commendable job synthesizing the ways conflict accelerates infectious disease emergence — from collapsed infrastructure to population displacement. It’s a thorough and needed contribution, especially given the rising frequency of protracted crises worldwide.
That said, one major limitation stands out: the review tends to frame “conflict” as a monolithic force. But not all conflicts are created equal. A slow-burning insurgency in a fragile state plays out very differently from the collapse of a middle-income nation’s public sector overnight. These nuances matter, especially when we’re talking about disease surveillance, health system resilience, or community-level trust in emergency health measures.
So, a core question emerges: Does the paper risk drawing overly broad conclusions by not disaggregating how different types of conflict, or different levels of state capacity, shape the trajectory of disease outbreaks?
A deeper dive into the political and institutional context, things like public trust, baseline health infrastructure, and governance capacity, could reveal not just how conflict drives disease, but why some responses fail where others succeed. Without this layer, we’re left with important findings, but limited insight into their transferability.