Report Say There Are 28 Ebola High Risk Countries

         
Save The Children Group have listed and ranked countries on the Ebola high risk chain, The group warned that apart from Liberia (which ranked 44th), other countries that are on the health high risk alert includes Nigeria (70th), Haiti (68th), Pakistan (57th), India (55th) and Kenya (47th). The two other Ebola-ravaged countries, Sierra Leone (46th) and Guinea (65th), also fell below Liberia. Somalia is last at 72nd.

The group, which has been fighting the epidemic ravaging Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, say that  28 countries have near-nonexistent health systems.

 In part, this illustrates the fact that Liberia had made some strides in maternal and child health in the 11 years after its civil war ended and before the Ebola outbreak began. But mostly it reflects the pitiful amount of money spent on health care in developing nations. The World Health organization estimates that $86 per person per year is the minimum spending required to provide essential health-care services. In 2012, Guinea spent $9, Sierra Leone spent $16 and Liberia spent $20, according to the report. All three figures were increases from 2006.
Ebola ravaged the three West African countries for a number of reasons, including unfamiliarity with a virus that previously had been confined to the rain forest; unsafe burial practices and denial among the populations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The World Health Organization and nations such as the United States that have the capacity to intervene were way too slow to recognize the danger and help.

But there is also little doubt that a more robust health-care system in the three countries could have helped. Nigeria (which, as noted above, fared poorly on Save the Children's list) mounted such a response when the epidemic threatened to spread there, and stamped it out. Despite initial stumbles, so did the United States.
"The current Ebola virus disease outbreak in western Africa highlights how an epidemic can proliferate rapidly and pose huge problems in the absence of a strong health system capable of a rapid and integrated response," the report quotes the World Health Organization as saying in one bulletin.
The report calls for those health-care systems to be vastly improved before the next crisis.
"Now is the time, in this period where Ebola seems to be getting under control...to strengthen health care systems," said Phil Carroll, a spokesperson for Save the Children.
Source:Here