Archives: South Asia

Meet Muna & Babesh Babesh is a five-year-old boy receiving treatment for stage four neuroblastoma in Kathmandu, Nepal. His family’s home is in Itahari, nine hours by car from Kathmandu. After Babesh was diagnosed, he and his mother Muna moved to a small apartment in Kathmandu so that he could receive treatment. His father works […]

Meet Dipesh Dipesh Dai is 17 years old and lives in central Nepal. When he was 14, he started experiencing severe headaches and fever, his feet felt numb, and “I felt my heart trembling.” His family took him first to a shaman, then to the closest hospital, which referred him to a hospital in Kathmandu. […]

In honor of World Cancer Day 2018, NCD Synergies and the Lancet NCDI Poverty Commission are sharing video narratives of four people living with cancer in rural Ethiopia and Nepal. Their stories, part of the Voices of NCDI Poverty initiative, highlight the importance of addressing the equity gap in access to cancer services among the world's poorest populations.

This paper seeks to provide researchers, including those performing studies focused on quality improvement of local health systems, with a methodology for identifying worst-off populations.

Published by Jan Swasthya Sahygog (JSS), a health NGO in central India, the Atlas serves as a collection of narratives capturing the patient journey of specific ailments and the complexity in which they present themselves in rural Chhattisgarh, India. Supplemented with photo essays, commentaries and epidemiological figures, the Atlas explores the burden of disease in this setting and repositions prevailing understandings of illness and poverty. NCDs and injuries are featured throughout the work.

As one of the first products related to the NCDI Poverty Commission, researchers have recently released a paper which presents evidence that among the world's poorest populations, the burden of death and disability from CVD affects people at a much younger age than in high-income countries and is caused mainly by infectious and environmental risk factors.

Published in June 2016 by commissioners and advisers of the Lancet NCDI Poverty Commission, this paper summarizes what is known about the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease among the world’s poorest people and evaluates the relevance of global targets for CVD control in this population.

Authors outline the process used by PRIME to develop a Situation Analysis Tool to analyze the gaps in mental health care in low-income countries, and inform the development of a district level mental health care plan (MHCP) in Nepal. The PRIME research consortium, led by the University of Cape Town, consists of partners in South Africa, Nepal, India, Ethiopia, and Uganda, and has made their Situation Analysis Tool and model mental health care plans available for download.

In this policy brief, authors discuss the burden of congenital heart disease, outlines the challenges surrounding pediatric cardiac services in low-income countries, and calls on the international community to include childhood heart disease in the in upcoming Sustainable Development agenda. The brief also highlights the work of Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS) in Kochi, India.

Published by the World Bank in 2013, this report discusses health system and policy options for addressing the NCD and injury burden in Bangladesh, especially in poor and rural populations. In addition to a comprehensive review of regional context, burden of disease, and risk factors for NCDs, authors of the report assess NCD and health system capacity at the national level, gives an overview of how NCD activities currently fit within the public sector in Bangladesh, and proposes strategic priorities given the challenges present across the health sector.