More than 100 medical journals across the world issued a rare joint call yesterday for urgent action to eliminate nuclear weapons, warning the threat of nuclear catastrophe was "great and growing."

The call comes with Russia repeatedly issuing warnings that it could use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, as well as repeated North Korean missile tests and stalling efforts toward non-proliferation.

An editorial published in numerous journals called on health professionals worldwide to alert citizens and leaders about "the major danger to public health" posed by nukes.

"The danger is great and growing," said the editorial, coauthored by editors of 11 leading journals including BMJ, Lancet, JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Chris Zielinski of the World Association of Medical Editors said it was an "extraordinary development" that the competing journals, which normally fight for exclusive content, had joined forces. "That all of these leading journals have agreed to publish the same editorial underlines the extreme urgency of the current nuclear crisis," he said.

The editorial warned that any use of nuclear weapons "would be catastrophic for humanity."

"Even a 'limited' nuclear war involving only 250 of the 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world could kill 120 million people outright and cause global climate disruption leading to a nuclear famine, putting two billion people at risk," it warned.

Coauthor Ira Helfand pointed to former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev's threat this week over the use of nuclear weapons if Ukraine's counter-offensive captured Russian territory.

"We don't know if the threats are real or if they're just put forward to scare people, but I think we have to take them very seriously," he said.

Nuclear weapon threats spark rare call for action