Editor—A special issue on South Asia is welcome.1 The region provides ample opportunity for the world to discuss and learn from its problems and experiences. Yet little is known about its disease burden and barriers to health care as researchers either do not exist or do not get published. As a result, international estimates, such as disability adjusted life years, for this region could be faulty. Resource allocation based on such estimates could put the region at a loss. Besides, there are emerging issues such as health inequity, government withdrawal from health care, lack of insurance, and cost ineffective use of resources.
However, this region is not just full of problems. New practices are emerging that could serve as models to the rest of the world. Kerala's model of “good health at low cost” is well known; other models are adoption of government healthcare institutions by industry, non-governmental organisations, or local self government and Tamil Nadu's model of drug distribution to government institutions (D Varatharajan, international conference on unity in education, training and healthcare delivery, Newcastle, October 2003). Strong, efficient, and equitable government healthcare provision is one of the basic requirements of good health at low cost.2
Health economics research has been neglected in this region and deserves space in the special issue.
Competing interests: None declared.
References
- 1.Bhutta Z, Nundy S, Abbasi K. Why a special issue of the BMJ on South Asia? BMJ 2003;327: 941-2. (25 October.) [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2.Kishnan TN. Access and the burden of treatment: An inter-state comparison. Thiruvananthapuram: Centre for Development Studies, 1994. (Studies on human development in India, discussion paper No 2.)