Opinion | From scarcity to scale: Nepal’s bid to become Global South’s healthcare d...

Picture this: A 28-year-old woman in the highlands of Rolpa is diagnosed with cervical cancer. Her genetic makeup, medical history, daily routine, diet, metabolic profile, gut microbiome, as well as the viral strain afflicting her are all data, valuable and unique to her geography. Today, we lose most, if not all, of it. What if all of that could be at her fingertips, just an app away? What if her data could be used to develop unique theranostics that could help patients like her? And what if sharing that data helped with their treatment bills? With a clean political slate and a government more than eager to deliver, Nepal now sits amid significant buy-ins in healthcare from both governments, north and south of the border. The urgency to invest in biodigital solutions is even more palpable as Nepal lies on the precipice of graduating from Least Developed Countries (LDCs). In digital health, Nepal isn’t exactly a laggard in its league when it comes to strategy papers, policies and guidelines. We also see some traction with pilots for community healthcare, telemedicine, federal health information management systems or even the national health insurance scheme. Almost all our larger hospitals, government or non-governmental, are in various stages of digitalisation. We have discreetly implemented indigenous as well as global open-source solutions for it, but we now must think of integrating all these, as well as with global value chains. The larger problem is not in the initiat