The Nepal Public Health Research Consultancy (NPHRC) is pleased to announce that Dr Alok Kafle, affiliated with NPHRC, has successfully secured a MODRA Seed Award for an international research project focused on tuberculosis (TB) and its comorbidities in Nepal.
The project, titled “Epidemiological Analysis of Tuberculosis Burden and Comorbidities: Assessing the Impact of Innovative Detection and Treatment Strategies in Nepal,” has been awarded USD 29,232.94 under the MORU–OUCRU Discovery Research Academy (MODRA) programme. The grant will support a 12-month research period from January 2026 to January 2027 .
Strengthening Evidence for TB Control in Nepal
Tuberculosis remains one of Nepal’s most persistent public health challenges, particularly in urban and peri-urban settings where comorbidities such as diabetes, HIV, malnutrition, and chronic respiratory disease complicate diagnosis and treatment. This MODRA-funded project aims to generate high-quality, patient-level evidence on TB burden and comorbidity patterns in the Kathmandu Valley, with direct relevance for national TB control efforts.
The study will employ a cross-sectional epidemiological design, collecting structured clinical, demographic, and behavioural data from TB treatment centres across Bagmati Province. In parallel, the project will explore the application of artificial intelligence (AI)–assisted chest X-ray analysis, evaluating how pretrained deep learning models perform when applied to Nepal-specific imaging data.
Innovation Through Collaboration
The project will be conducted in collaboration with international and regional partners, including Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) and NAAMII (Nepal Applied Mathematics and Informatics Institute for Research). These partnerships will support capacity building in AI-enabled health research while ensuring that methodological development remains grounded in Nepal’s clinical realities.
Importantly, the AI component is designed as a pilot and methodological foundation, assessing the feasibility of integrating imaging-based tools with clinical data to support TB diagnosis and severity assessment. Findings from this work are expected to inform larger, future studies and implementation efforts across Nepal’s health system.
Building Research Capacity at NPHRC
This award reflects NPHRC’s continued commitment to advancing locally relevant, internationally competitive public health research. By combining epidemiological fieldwork with emerging digital health approaches, the project strengthens NPHRC’s role as a national hub for translational research that bridges data, policy, and practice.
Speaking on the award, colleagues at NPHRC noted that the MODRA Seed Grant represents not only a research milestone but also a significant opportunity to expand Nepal’s research network, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and lay the groundwork for larger externally funded projects in the future.
NPHRC congratulates Dr. Kafle on this achievement and looks forward to sharing updates and findings from the project as it progresses.