Since Sri Lanka's independence in 1948, the government has been committed to providing a healthcare system that reaches all classes, genders and ethnicities. In 1949, health was declared a fundamental right of citizenship by Sri Lanka’s first Minister of Health, S. W. D. Bandaranaike. Since then, Sri Lanka has been consistently held as a model of good health at low cost. Striving for Equity: Healthcare in Sri Lanka from Independence to the Millennium, 1948–2000 explores the implementation of primary healthcare in Sri Lanka against the background of a 30-year internal conflict. It includes an analysis of how international health organisations like the WHO imposed a global health agenda on the developing world through a study of a joint WHO–Sri Lanka project on tuberculosis control. The author studies selected health policy developments and programmes in Sri Lanka from 1948–2000 with a special focus on children's health, especially the problem of malnutrition, and the implementation of the childhood immunisation programme. Along with the continuing incidence of communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases present a growing obstacle to the achievement of equity in the twenty-first century. How the country has responded to this double disease burden problem provides the focus of the final chapter. Contents: List of Tables and Figure List of Abbreviations Glossary Acknowledgements Introduction: Sri Lanka as a Model for Health Equity 1. Delivering ‘Medical Services for Health and Not for Disease’ 2. ‘Public Enemy Number 1’: Governmental, Medical and Societal Responses to TB 3. ‘The Protection of Child Health is the Protection of the Nation’: Malnutrition and Child Health 4. The Technological Fix for Child Health: Immunisation 5. Non-communicable Diseases: The Double Disease Burden Conclusion: The Challenge of Health for All in the Twenty-first Century Bibliography Index