Health for All

Right to Health in Nepal: Commitment versus Challenges

Pratik Khanal — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Nepal’s Interim Constitution 2007 addresses health as a fundamental right. The constitutional provision has set the platform for commencement of free health service program in Nepal. Recently, the New National Health Policy 2014 has been introduced which aims to devise different strategies to effectively implement Universal Health Coverage. Though concept of human right based approach has been integrated in different health development policies and plans, health system still faces different challenges in materializing health as a human right. This paper discusses on policy provisions as well as synchronization of Nepal’s efforts on fulfilling its commitment for right to health.

Health for All Vol.,2 2014: 3-5

Junk Food and Food Insecurity in Developing Countries

Dipika Neupane — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Rapid population growth and urbanization is increasing challenges to maintain food security. In this context, large multinational companies are coming forward to supply food to the whole world. They are supplying junk food items that have attractive packaging and good taste with very low nutritive value. These foods are getting popular due to time factor, taste factor and appealing advertisements. Specially, school aged children are getting addicted to these foods which is hampering their growth and development and are being vulnerable to non-communicable diseases. In developing countries, this has added double burden of disease creating new challenge to the health system. This increasing popularity is due to globalization and market liberalization in food marketing. To control its consumption, huge capital expenditure in food marketing and false advertisement should be restricted. Meanwhile, effective health promotion activities will help to create awareness about dietary needs among general population.

Health for All Vol.2 2014: 6-8

Suicides among Women - A Sad Reality in Nepal

Shivani Saria — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

No Abstract

Health for All Vol.2 2014: 9-10

Priced literature: a bottleneck to wider applicability of scientific evidence

Parash Mani Bhandari — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

With the advent of internet, scientific publishing has been less costly. Anyone at any corner of the world can benefit from the recent evidences generated by the scientific community, given that no mechanism to prevent such access exists. In practice, however, this huge potentiality of benefitting from science has been limited by the narrow paywall of academic publishers. This paper talks about the potential inhibitory effects priced literature can have on the applicability of scientific achievements and the latest activities aimed to discourage priced literature. These days, most of the journals are converting them from traditional subscription based model to new OA model, which is just a transformation from ‘pay-to-read’ to ‘pay-to-publish’ model. In countries like Nepal, where academic publishing hasn’t grown as a business, most of the journals are self-sustained with alternative mechanisms of funding the costs incurred.

Health for All Vol.2 2014: 11-14

Accessibility of Antiretroviral Treatment (ART) services in Nepal

Kiran Thapa — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Antiretroviral treatment (ART) services have been proved to be very effective in treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS worldwide. This paper is aimed at whether ART services in Nepal are accessible to people living with HIV (PLHIV) and also tries to explore some barriers to accessibility of ART services. It has been more than a decade since ART services have been started in Nepal. But still, it has not been able to reach all the people who are eligible for treatment. Despite numerous efforts from government and non-government sectors, socio-cultural and managerial issues limit PLHIV’s access to ART services.

Health for All Vol.2 2014: 15-17

Challenges to health rights: Need of solidarity more than ever

Pawan Acharya, Tara Ballav Adhikari — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Health for All Vol.2 2014: 1-2