WHO urges action to improve health services
Print Edition
Ebola-related deaths in West Africa will be higher than the number of people directly infected because of its disruption to already weak healthcare services, the World Health Organization warned yesterday.
It is convening a meeting in Geneva next week with finance and health ministers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, donors and NGOs, to develop “practical actions” on how to improve health care systems.
“Ebola has strongly impacted the already weak health systems, and Ebola has probably killed more people than the 6,000 linked to the disease itself,” said the WHO’s coordinator of health systems, Gerard Schmets.
He added: “This is a real critical situation that these countries are facing.”
Vaccination programs and general health services have stopped altogether in the worst affected areas of the three countries, which have borne the brunt of the outbreak, he said.
There was already a shortage of health workers — Sierra Leone had only two doctors for every 100,000 people, or just about 120 doctors for 6 million people before the outbreak began.
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