Ramanan Laxminarayan
Ramanan Laxminarayan
Ramanan Laxminarayan is Vice-President for Research and Policy at the Public Health Foundation of India. He is an economist and epidemiologist by training. His research work deals with the integration of epidemiological models of infectious disease s and drug resistance into the economic analysis of public health problems.
Education
In 1992, Ramanan Laxminarayan finished Birla Institute of Technology and Science, where he studied engineering. He received his Doctor of Philosophy in Economics from University of Washington.[12]
Career
Since 1995, Ramanan Laxminarayan has worked to improve the understanding of antibiotic resistance as a problem of managing a shared global resource. His work encompasses extensive peer-reviewed research, public outreach, and direct engagement across Asia and Africa.[11] From 1999-2010, Ramanan was a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future.[12]
Through his work on Extending the Cure project in the United States and the Global Antibiotic Resistance Partnership, Laxminarayan has worked to improve the understanding of antibiotic resistance as a problem of managing a shared global resource.
He has worked extensively with the World Health Organization (WHO), World Bank and other international organisations on evaluating malaria treatment policy, vaccination strategies, the economic burden of tuberculosis, and control of non-communicable diseases.[10]
Ramanan Laxminarayan is an editor of the Disease Control Priorities for Developing Countries, 3rd edition. He has served on a number of advisory committees at the World Health Organization, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and the US National Academies of Science/Institute of Medicine. In 2003-04, he served on the Institute of Medicine Committee on the Economics of Anti-malarial Drugs and subsequently helped create the Affordable Medicines Facility for malaria, a novel financing mechanism for antimalarials.[10] In 2012, Laxminarayan created the Immunization Technical Support Unit that supports the immunization program of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of the Government of India and which is credited with helping rapidly improve vaccination coverage and introduction of four new vaccines. As Vice President, Research and Policy at the Public Health Foundation of India between 2011 and 2015, he led the growth of a research division to over 700 technical and research staff.[13]
He has co-authored and edited five books and published over eighty peer-reviewed journal articles.
Laxminarayan also directs the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy in Washington, D.C., and is a Research Scholar and Lecturer at Princeton University.[10]
Since 2016, Laxminarayan has been the founder and board chair of HealthCubed Inc, aiming to provide a platform for healthcare and diagnostics for the four billion people on the planet who lack access.[12]
In 2019, he received the the Birla Institute of Technology and Science's Distinguished Alumnus Award.[11]
Coronavirus Outbreak
In March 2020, Laxminarayan has warned that India could soon be dealing with a "tsunami" of coronavirus cases.
Speaking to the BBC's Rajini Vaidyanthan in Delhi, Laxminarayan said that if the same mathematical models applied in the US or UK were applied to India, the country could be dealing with about 300 million cases, of which about four to five million could be severe.[20]
If India's health system is unprepared, they could be looking at 2 to 2.5 million deaths, Ramanan Laxminarayan said:
"If we're prepared, it will come under a million deaths.
So we have some serious work ahead of us in the next couple of weeks."[21]