The Next Wave of Deaths from Ebola? : The Impact of Health Care Worker Mortality

Evans, David K. ; Goldstein, Markus ; Popova, Anna

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: BIRTH;    WORKFORCE;    PEOPLE;    VACCINATION;    INCOME;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7344
RP-ID  :  WPS7344

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The ongoing Ebola outbreak in WestAfrica has put a huge strain on already weak health systems.Ebola deaths have been disproportionately concentrated amonghealth care workers, exacerbating existing skill shortagesin Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone in a way that willnegatively affect the health of the populations even afterEbola has been eliminated. This paper combines data oncumulative health care worker deaths from Ebola, the stockof health care workers and mortality rates pre-Ebola, andcoefficients that summarize the relationship between healthcare workers in a given country and rates of maternal,infant, and under-five mortality. The paper estimates howthe loss of health care workers to Ebola will likely affectnon-Ebola mortality even after the disease is eliminated. Itthen estimates the size of the resource gap that needs to befilled to avoid these deaths, and to reach the minimumthresholds of health coverage described in the MillenniumDevelopment Goals. Maternal mortality could increase by 38percent in Guinea, 74 percent in Sierra Leone, and 111percent in Liberia due to the reduction in health personnelcaused by the epidemic. This translates to an additional4,022 women dying per year across the three most affectedcountries. To avoid these deaths, 240 doctors, nurses, andmidwives would need to be immediately hired across the threecountries. This is a small fraction of the 43,565 doctors,nurses, and midwives that would need to be hired to achievethe adequate health coverage implied by the MillenniumDevelopment Goals. Substantial investment in health systemsis urgently required not only to improve future epidemicpreparedness, but also to limit the secondary health effectsof the current epidemic owing to the depletion of the health workforce.