Dar KH
South Asia is home to 1709.723 million people and is the most densely populated region of the globe. The GDP of South Asia in terms of PPP is $9876.6 bn and in the recent past it came to limelight mainly because of high growth rate of GDP (3.3%) over the last fifteen years. This high growth rate was mainly fuelled by India. Despite the improvements it has made in the past 25 years it is still categorised as medium human development region with its HDI score of 0.599. Low human development in south Asia is attributed to its low standard of life, low quality of education and health. The health outcomes of South Asia are relatively poor compared with other regions of the world. The IMR of South Asia is 34.1, MMR is 176 and the DALY’s are 712,139.8. South Asia has not only relatively poor health outcomes compared with the other regions of the globe level but there are significant variations in the health outcomes of the constituting countries. In this region the health outcomes of Sri Lanka are better and can be compared to any developed country of the world. The better health outcomes of Sri Lanka are explained by its strong social determinants of health and its efficiency to use the health inputs. To improve the health outcomes mainly by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh which constitute 95% population of South Asia it is imperative to improve the social determinants and efficient use of health inputs.
