Anchal Thapa

Ms. Anchal Thapa currently serves as Deputy Research Manager at BNMT’s head office in Kathmandu. Over her three-year tenure at BNMT, she has contributed across various roles, initially joining as a Consultant Health Economist for the IMPACT TB project under the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM). Ms. Thapa holds an MSc in Health Economics and Health Policy from the University of Birmingham, UK, along with a Bachelor’s degree in Public Health from Nobel College (Pokhara University). As a driven and emerging researcher, she is dedicated to advancing her expertise in health economics through designing and conducting economic evaluations alongside diverse implementation research. In 2022, Ms. Thapa was awarded the prestigious Early Career Research Grant by the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (RSTMH), where she led an evaluation of the cost-effectiveness of using drones for transporting sputum samples for TB case detection in Pyuthan. She has significant experience in analyzing patient cost surveys and was instrumental in the data analysis and reporting for Nepal’s first National Tuberculosis Patient Cost Survey. Currently, Ms. Thapa is engaged in the economic evaluation of a randomized controlled trial as part of the ACT South Asia Trial, led by the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) Nepal. This study assesses the effectiveness of Azithromycin and Cefixime versus Azithromycin alone in treating clinically suspected or confirmed uncomplicated typhoid fever in South Asia.