Skills drain hindering AIDS efforts - UK

Britain's Medical Association (BMA) said on Wednesday that a growing brain drain in developing countries is undermining efforts to tackle diseases, including HIV/AIDS.

The association warned that lives were being lost as a result of the severe shortage of healthcare workers in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, and that further losses of staff could cause the death toll to rise even further.

Stressing that the impact of health worker migration from developing to developed countries was a significant component in the crisis, the BMA urged countries like the UK to end their reliance on overseas doctors and nurses.

Doctor Edwin Borman, the BMA international committee chairman, said in a statement: "Sub-Saharan Africa needs at least another million healthcare workers, but in many countries the numbers are actually going down. At the moment, richer countries simply aren't doing enough to prevent a complete catastrophe."

The BMA said it would call on governments to act on its recommendations at a conference of commonwealth health ministers in Geneva this Sunday.