05 Dec 2004, 20:18 UTC

This is Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English DevelopmentReport.

A new study says the world needs four million more health workersto improve public health. Southern Africa alone needs an estimatedone million more health workers just to meet the MillenniumDevelopment Goals. These United Nations goals aim to improve healthby two thousand fifteen.

The study is by a group of health and development organizationscalled the Joint Learning Initiative. The Lancet in Britainpublished the results.

The researchers estimate that more than one hundred millionpeople work in health care worldwide. But the study says only aboutone-fourth of these people are trained as doctors, nurses ormidwives. The others are believed to be traditional, community orother kinds of health workers.

The study examines the way skilled professionals are spreadthroughout the world. For example, it says sub-Saharan Africa hasone-tenth as many nurses and doctors for its population as Europehas. Italy has fifty times as many as Ethiopia has.

The study blames several things. First is the AIDS crisis. Healthworkers face more work and the danger of infection. The study saysmany no longer act as healers but as providers of care for thedying.

Second is the so-called "brain drain" of skilled workers frompoor nations to countries that can pay them more. And third is alack of enough investment in health workers in many countries.

But the study says official development assistance is finallyincreasing after ten years. Currently, about four thousand milliondollars a year in foreign aid for health is spent on humanresources, such as pay and training. The researchers say foreign aidproviders must work together to better organize their investments.They say ten percent, or four hundred million dollars, should gotoward workforce development.

The study also suggests better use of resources such asparaprofessionals. These are people trained to do much of the workof doctors, including some operations. But they are not doctors, sothere is less chance they might leave for wealthier countries thatneed doctors.

Lincoln Chen at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts,helped write this call for action. What we do or fail to do today,he says, will shape the direction of world health in thetwenty-first century.

This VOA Special English Development Report was written by JillMoss. This is Gwen Outen.