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Essential Stroke Services – Introduction

Peter Langhorne, UK; Jeyaraj Durai Pandian, India;and Linda De Villiers, South Africa

Stroke units are now seen as the central, effective compo-nent of a modern stroke service. However, most stroke unitdevelopments have been carried out in high-income coun-tries. This raises the question of whether such care is appli-cable to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Thismodule demonstrates that:

1. Stroke units appear to offer important population healthgains in LMICs.

2. We can identify many of the important components of a‘‘lower technology’’ stroke unit including examples thathave been established in LMICs.

3. We need to understand and address the barriers to estab-lishing stroke units.

There are significant challenges to the widespread developmentof stroke units but these challenges are too important to avoid.

The new WSA Learning Activity can be accessed here. �

View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.comVC 2013 by the World Stroke Organisation

doi: 10.1002/wsa2.220010

16 World Stroke Academy, Vol. 1, No. 3, p 16 May 2013