Trade in medicines and the public's health: a time series analysis of import disruptions during the 2015 India-Nepal border blockade.

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Nepal was struck by devastating earthquakes in April-May 2015, followed by the India-Nepal border blockade later that year. METHODS: We used the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics (UN Comtrade) database to analyse exports of various health commodities from India to Nepal from January 2011-September 2016. We used time-series regressions of trading volume vs. unit price to ask how well Nepal's trading history with India prior to the earthquake and blockade was able to predict unit prices of health commodities imported into Nepal during and after the earthquake and the blockade. Regression residuals were used to quantify the extent to which the blockade impacted the price of ..