Bold Solutions to Africa's Health Worker Shortage

In Africa, a mere 3% of the world's trained health workers struggle to combat 24% of the global disease burden. The World Health Organization estimates that sub-Saharan Africa is suffering a shortage of more than 800,000 doctors, nurses, and midwives, and an overall shortfall of nearly 1.5 million health workers.

While the scale of the crisis is huge, solutions do exist. Many countries and communities around the world have begun to develop and implement innovative initiatives to sustain and build the health workforce. Several such examples are highlighted here. They address such issues as retention in rural areas, AIDS treatment for health workers, and the deployment of paraprofessionals to extend health care access deeper into communities. Many of these examples focus on rural areas, which typically have only a fraction of the number of health workers as urban areas due to more difficult living conditions, social and professional isolation, and weaker health infrastructure.

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