A medical check-up for a child in Nepal

In Nepal, the mountainous, rugged Himalayan country in South Asia, caring for newborns and children is a major challenge: on average, there is only one doctor for every 1,300 inhabitants (for comparison, Germany is 1:235) (WHO, 2020). Comprehensive medical care is only available in a few large cities. The proportion of children under 14 years of age is almost 30 percent of the population (CIA, 2021). The costs of medical examinations and treatment usually have to be borne by the people themselves, as there is no comprehensive health insurance. Reconstruction after the dramatic earthquake of 2015 has dragged on for years. But significant improvements in maternal and child mortality have already been recorded: in 2019, the mortality rate for children under 5 was 31 per 1,000 live births, which corresponds to a 78 percent reduction compared to 1990 (UNICEF, 2020). However, these successes are in danger of stagnating since the Covid-19 pandemic. Medical facilities are visited much less frequently - either out of fear of infection or for financial reasons, such as because tourists are staying away and unemployment has risen. Before the pandemic, around a third of the population already lived below the poverty line (World Bank, 2019), but the situation has now worsened. Therefore, the further expansion of medical infrastructure as well as preventive and preventive work to improve the health of the population are essential.