Map of Uganda

Save the Children in Uganda has urged African leaders to recruit, train and retain more doctors, nurses and Midwives to help reduce the gap of 800,000 health workers in Africa by 2015.

This comes amidst various calls that have been leveled out to the various leaders to ensure that by 2015 the African countries have increased their health budget funding to at least 15% despite that most of the African countries are not on course to achieve this commitment in relation to the health budgets they made in the Abuja declaration in 2001.

The Africa Advocacy Advisor of the organization, Chikenzie Anyanwu has said in press statement that it is very disheartening to hear that Africa which is home to about 12% of the world’s population has only 3% of the world’s health workers.

Anyanwu says it is also disheartening because Africa bears the biggest of the disease burden of the world with such a small number of health workers.

He says the African leaders should therefore seriously work on reducing this gap of health workers in the continent if it is to achieve the end of remarkably improving the standards of health on the continent.

By Tiberindwa Zakaria