By Orly Avitzur, MD, MBA, FAAN

October 10, 2020

In India—where almost 1,000 AAN members practice and more than 1,000 US neurologists have completed their medical school education—the COVID-19 pandemic is now said to be spreading more quickly than anywhere else in the world. Over 6.7 million people have been diagnosed with COVID-19, and with only one government physician for every 10,189 people—one-tenth of the World Health Organization recommendation of a ratio of 1:1000—some experts say many patients have been left to fend for themselves.

By mid-September, the daily cases in India had risen to almost 100,000, as the government eased restrictions to recover from the economic devastation brought on by the pandemic.

To get an on-the-ground look at conditions in the country, where approximately 2,000 neurologists serve a population of 1.4 billion, Neurology Today spoke to a half-dozen neurologists who agreed to share their experiences. Many more were too stretched thin to talk. Those who did describe the challenges of battling the virus in the setting of complex and decentralized health systems, poor economic conditions, and gaping disparities by caste, class, and gender in access to health care.

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