Closing the epilepsy treatment gap requires more than isolated clinics or medicine donations. A national epilepsy programme has to connect policy, workforce, diagnosis, medicines, referral, data, public education and human-rights protection.
Start with the treatment gap
WHO reports that treatment gaps exceed 75% in many low-income countries and remain substantial in middle-income settings.
The causes include workforce shortages, medicine access, diagnostic limitations, cost, stigma and weak referral systems.
Primary care is the foundation
Most people with epilepsy live outside specialist centres.
Training primary-care and community workers can bring diagnosis and long-term treatment closer to where people live.
Specialist referral still needs to exist
Drug-resistant epilepsy, diagnostic uncertainty and surgical evaluation require higher-level expertise.
A national programme therefore needs clear referral pathways rather than expecting primary care to manage everything.
Medicines must be continuously available
Essential antiseizure medicines need reliable procurement, distribution and financing.
Short-term donation programmes do not solve recurrent stock-outs or out-of-pocket costs.
Diagnostics need tiered access
EEG and neuroimaging do not have to exist in every clinic, but referral access must be realistic.
Regional diagnostic hubs can support larger catchment areas when transport and referral are functional.
Data are needed to know whether the programme works
Countries need indicators for treatment coverage, medicine availability, mortality, workforce and human-rights protections.
WHO’s IGAP framework provides global targets and implementation tools for this purpose.
People with epilepsy must be involved
Modern programme design should include people with epilepsy and carers in policy, education and evaluation.
Services built without lived-experience input can miss barriers that are invisible to administrators.
Related reading
Sources and further reading
- WHO Intersectoral Global Action Plan
- WHO IGAP implementation toolkit
- WHO Global status report on neurology, 2025
- WHO epilepsy technical brief
Evidence checked: September 2026.