GENEVA — A global shortage of doctors and nurses is hampering the fight against AIDS and other fatal diseases and could leave the world vulnerable to a flu outbreak or major disaster, the U.N. health agency said Friday.
Doctors and nurses are urgently needed in the 57 worst-affected countries to immunize children against illness and to treat AIDS-related ailments, malaria and tuberculosis, the World Health Organization said in its annual report.
"The global shortage approaches 4.3 million health workers," the report said.
The lack is greatest in the areas that need medical care the most — South and East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, it said.
"The global population is growing, but the number of health workers is stagnating or even falling in many of the places where they are needed most," said Lee Jong-wook, WHO director-general.
The report said more than a billion people worldwide lack access to the most basic health care — often because there is no health worker.
At the same time there are growing fears, in rich and poor countries alike, of new infectious threats such as avian influenza, the report said.
Health experts fear a bird flu outbreak should the virus mutate into a strain that easily passes from person to person.
"Recent concern about the threat of avian influenza has drawn attention to the devastating impact a global pandemic could have, given the current shortage of health workers, combined with their insufficient preparedness and often poor working conditions," WHO said.
"Sudden catastrophic events can quickly overwhelm local and national health systems already suffering from staff shortages or lack of funds."
The burden falls on every country — even the wealthy — to increase the number of health workers, it said, noting that the richest countries are filling their shortages through a "brain drain," pulling doctors from the poorest countries.
It said one of every four doctors trained in Africa is working in the 30 mainly industrialized nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The rate for African nurses is one in 20 working in the OECD.
"Such countries are likely to attract even more foreign staff because of their aging populations who will need more long-term, chronic care," said WHO Assistant Director-General Timothy Evans.