Surviving Ebola: Africa cries out for healthcare boost
Friday, August 22, 2014
Surviving sickness can make you stronger.
So while a western corner of Africa writhes in the deadly grip of the Ebola virus, there are signs this emergency may serve as a wake-up call to strengthen spending and investment on public healthcare in the world’s least developed continent.
“If anything, I think it is teaching us something,” Mustapha Sidiki Kaloko, the African Union’s Commissioner for Social Affairs, told reporters in Addis Ababa this month.
“It is not only a question of response … it goes back to the issue of strengthening our health systems. Prevention is always better than cure,” Kaloko said.
One often-repeated reason for the devastating rapacity of the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea is that those three small states were already weakened by poverty and a decade of interlocking civil wars.
Source: Reuters (link opens in a new window)
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