Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is among the most significant global health concerns of our time. In 2019, 1.27 million deaths were attributed to resistant bacterial infections, and by 2050, it is predicted AMR will cost upwards of $100USD trillion, accounting for 10 million deaths worldwide.  Antimicrobial resistance transcends borders, affecting communities in every region of the world. Poor and marginalized populations are among the most impacted by AMR, yet global discourse on policies and solutions often overlooks the challenges faced in these settings. Containing the spread of ..read more

  The health system is the societal response to the determinants of health. The effectiveness of a health system depends on the availability, accessibility, affordability and acceptability of services in a form that the people can understand, accept and utilise according to their felt needs. The health system in Bangladesh, with extensive infrastructure in both public and private sectors, is highly pluralistic. The formal health system relies heavily on the government/ public sector for financing and setting overall policies and service delivery mechanisms. The private sector services are ..read more

In Bangladesh, healthcare service delivery remains significantly challenged by staff shortages, maldistribution of workforce, and absenteeism, especially of doctors. The health system has an extensive infrastructure in urban and rural areas, but the dynamic intersection of the pluralistic health system, large informal sector, and poor regulatory environment have provided conditions favourable for ‘corruption,’ especially in remote rural areas. Although data are scarce, it has been estimated that 40% of doctors are absent from their posts at any one time, and when a facility is staffed by a sin ..read more

There have been attempts at developing programmes and interventions to address key    challenges related to a lack of adolescent-friendly health services, limited access to age-appropriate counselling services, promotion of a healthy lifestyle, and menstrual management facilities at the school, both in the government and non-state sectors for quite some time. These programmes have mostly been on a small scale, localised and fragmented. A study has been done to fill in this knowledge gap by conducting a situation analysis on AH/SRH and identifying past and present programmes that have ..read more

  The trauma registry has been an invaluable tool for informing the design of quality trauma care system, including planned resource allocation and injury surveillance over time. However, its implementation in lower middle in-come countries (LMICs) like Bangladesh faces many barriers and challenges. To test the feasibility of implementation of a trauma registry (TR) and trauma system improvement programme (TSIP) in Bangladesh, a pilot study was conducted in four public sector hospitals in districts with a high incidence of Road-traffic accidents (RTAs) (Bogra, Comilla, Jhenaidah and Tang ..read more

 BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University and Bangladesh Health Watch organised a Virtual International Conference on COVID-19 to discuss the experiences and lessons learned during the two years of the pandemic and reflect on what needs to be done to reform the future health systems ready for addressing the current and future epidemic/pandemics. Besides, the challenges and opportunities of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in a post-pandemic world was also discussed. The unfolding of the Covid-19 pandemic over the pas ..read more

My blog Bangladesh Health Scenario has been selected by panelists of feedspot.com as one of the Top 20 Bangladesh Health Blogs on the web. See the list here: https://blog.feedspot.com/bangladesh_health_blogs/ Cheers ..read more

  Bangladesh is currently undergoing an epidemic of road traffic accidents (RTAs) and hardly a day passes without a report of such an incident in the media. The latest Global Status Report on Road Safety registered some improvements for Bangladesh concerning safer roads and mobility and safer vehicles but poor performance in areas like gathering accident data, safer road users and post-crash care. A recent Rapid Review found the near absence of pre-hospital care and poor hospital-based care for the victims of the Road Traffic Crashes (RTC) which needs to be addressed urgently if we are to ..read more

  Bangladesh is currently undergoing an epidemic of Road Traffic Crashes (RTC) and hardly a day passes without a report of such an incident in the media. The annual road crash deaths per capita in Bangladesh are twice the average rate for high-income countries and between 1990 and 2017, the increase in the road crash fatality rate per capita was three times higher in Bangladesh than that across the South Asia region[1]. The levels of mortality and morbidity are quite high and the economic loss from RTC is estimated to be around 2 to 3% of the gross domestic product (GDP)[2]. Thus, the iss ..read more

  Introduction Bangladesh, a low middle-income country, developed a burgeoning pharmaceutical sector thanks to its pioneering Drug Policy of 1982.[1] Now it claims a market share of around 98 % of total drug sales compared to 25 % before the National Drug Policy was enacted in 1982. Specialized products like ant-cancer drugs, vaccines and hormonal preparations are imported to meet the remaining demand. According to the Bangladesh Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (BAPI) and Directorate General of Drug Administration (DGDA), approximately 257 licensed pharmaceutical manufacturers (a ..read more