News and Events

General Body Meeting

The general body meeting of MIRA was held on August 27, 2005 chaired by Prof. Dr. Dharma S. Manandhar at MIRA meeting hall. The annual progress report was presented by the Secretary, Dr. Prakash S. Shrestha and financial report by the Treasurer, Dr. Kasturi Malla. Most of the members were present during the meeting . The election of a new executive committee for the period of 2005 - 2007 was also held on the same day followed by the executive meeting of the newly elected members.

Award for services to health research
On November 21st 2003, at the Narayanhiti palace in Kathmandu, Professor Anthony Costello was presented with the ‘Suprabal Gorkha Dakshin Bahu’ award for services to health research and development in Nepal from King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shaha Dev. Professor Costello has been involved in health and development projects in Nepal for nearly twenty years and is a former field director of Save the Children Fund, Nepal. His work in Nepal continues today as Director of the International Perinatal Care Unit.

Outstanding Researcher Award for Professor Manandhar

Professor Dharma Sharna Manandhar, President of MIRA, received the Outstanding Research Award 2002 from the Nepal Health Research Council on June 4, 2003. The award was presented by Professor Upendra Devkota, Nepal's Minister for Health and Science and Technology. This is the first award given by  Nepal Health Research Council. He received the award for his contribution in promoting  Newborn Health in Nepal through MIRA's research in collaboration with IPU and publications in national and international medical journals. 

MIRA has successfully completed four major projects in collaboration with Anthony Costello, the executive director of WCF and Professor in International Child Health at the Institute of Child Health, University College London. They have received support from DFID, UNICEF, WHO and other smaller benefactors. Currently MIRA is working to improve perinatal care in Makwanpur and Dhanusha district of Nepal.

News Archive

2002

Live or Die in Nepal

The British Medical Journal published an IPU paper entitled "Cross sectional, community based study of care of newborn infants in Nepal" in their 09 November 02 issue. This is the first of a number of research papers from our study in Makwanpur, Nepal to be disseminated via an international scientific journal.
BMJ.com
Download PDF (236KB)

Project News

Reducing maternal and neonatal mortality in the poorest communities

The British Medical Journal has published a paper highlighting how current health programmes are often failing to reach those at highest risk of maternal and neonatal death. Evidence is growing that community based interventions are effective in reducing maternal and neonatal deaths in countries with high mortality, and the international community needs to learn from this.
Randomised, controlled trials of the community effectiveness of interventions are urgently required as they measure the true scale of a problem, accurately assess community and cost effectiveness, and avoid investment in ineffective strategies. BMJ.com | Download paper (132KB)

Makwanpur trial results are published in the Lancet on 11th September

A paper on the MIRA Makwanpur study, published in The Lancet on September 11th, details large reductions in deaths of mothers and newborn infants in poor and remote communities in Nepal. New research by the International Perinatal Care Unit and MIRA shows that a new approach involving women’s community groups could save millions of lives. Our three-year study, involving almost 29,000 women, demonstrates the effectiveness of peer-to-peer education. During the trial, the number of neonatal deaths in intervention groups fell by 30%, and there was also a large reduction in maternal deaths. A comment on this paper was published in the Lancet (Morrow, A.L. and Dawodu, A., 2004. Influencing birth outcomes in Nepal. Lancet, 364.914-15.) Read more...