Healthcare sector in South-east Asia ripe for lift-off

IF "necessity is the mother of invention" is a truism, the healthcare sector in South-east Asia is ripe for lift-off in accessible and affordable health care.

The 10-country Asean region counts a population of over 600 million, dispersed over a large geography. Communities are culturally and ethnically heterogeneous, even within countries, with different patterns of consumption.

The quality of local healthcare provision ranges from good (but with key gaps for the urban middle class and poor) to non-existent for urban poor and rural communities. Added to this, the region faces a shortage of health workers - with the World Health Organization (WHO) forecasting a 4.7 million shortage for South-east Asia by 2030. With minimal insurance or state payment cover, millions of people are just one major illness away from financial catastrophe.