May 2006 | Volume 3 | Issue 5 | e108 The seven countries of South Asia (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) have a collective population of nearly 1.4 billion people [1]. This region has a long history of hostility and mistrust among its nations, and heavy governmental spending on defense has diverted resources away from investing in health and education [2–5]. ...

This publication presents an overview of the practices and the context of pharmacotherapy of opioid dependence in selected countries of the South East Asia and Western Pacific regions of the World Health Organisation. Based on reports provided by professionals involved in treatment of opioid dependence in these regions, the document describes the current situation with opioid use and its health...

BACKGROUND According to the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS, 33.2 million adults and children are living with the infection worldwide. Of these, two to three million are estimated to be in South Asia. All countries of the region have a low prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). However, it is important to review the current epidemiological data to identify the trends of infe...

Social impact bonds (SIBs) have the potential to improve the efficiency of government health-care spending in South-East Asia. In a SIB, governments sign a pay-for-performance contract with one or several providers of health-care services, and the providers borrow up-front capital from investors. Governments outside South-East Asia have started to experiment with SIBs in criminal justice, homel...

Former President Bill Clinton described South Asia as the most dangerous place on earth. We in Pakistan agree with this characterization. It is indeed ironic that the extremely enterprising and hard working people of South Asia, who have achieved such success in their endeavors abroad, have been unable to resolve their mutual differences in order to harness the immense economic potential of the...

2 ABSTRACT The paper argues that the economies of East and South East Asia are a very diverse group, only some of which have grown rapidly over the past three decades. The fast growing economies of South East Asia, especially Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia are in a number of important respects different from the fast growing economies of North The different colonial legacies have had importan...

We examine the timing of deformation and exhumation of the Nanga Parbat-Haramosh massif in the western syntaxis of the Himalaya. This study presents geochronologic and thermochronologic data obtained from basement, shear zone, and intrusive units within the massif to reveal the Cenozoic tectonic evolution of the massif and to document the extent of the Plio-Pleistocene tectonic activity. These ...

Introduction: Diarrheal diseases are a serious health problem and important causes of growth retardation and death in the developing world, especially those of prolonged duration. Since diarrhea is constantly found in children with zinc deficiency, very studies supported zinc supplements beneficial on the duration and severity of diarrhea among children. We review the impact of zinc effects on ...

Over 50% of the global burden of tuberculosis occurs in South East Asia and the Western Pacific. Since 1950, notification rates in high-income countries in these settings have declined slowly and have remained over ten-fold greater than those in Western populations. The reasons for the slow decline are poorly understood. Using an age-structured model describing the incidence of Mycobacterium tu...

Typhoid fever is a serious, systemic infection resulting in nearly 22 million cases and 216,500 deaths annually, primarily in Asia. Safe water, adequate sanitation, appropriate personal and food hygiene, and vaccination are the most effective strategies for prevention and control. In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended use of available typhoid vaccines to control endemic disea...