Zambia is currently faced with a " critical" shortage of health workers with most health facilities in the country operating at less than 50 percent of the required workforce for almost all categories, a heath official said here Sunday.

Health Minister Sylvia Masebo told a press briefing that there are a total of 23,000 health workers in Zambia, where about 45,000 are required to cater for the health need of the country's 11 million population.

And among the total health workers only 692 are doctors and an estimated 1,500 more are needed, said Masebo.

The minister attributed the health personnel shortage to the poor working conditions arising from cost cutting and under investment in the health sector, which led to brain drain of health workers to other countries.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic that is decimating the country has in addition worsened the health worker crisis, she added.

Masebo said the Zambian government has developed a human resource health strategic plan from 2005 to 2010 in order to address the workforce shortage problem.

She disclosed that some of the measures put in place include improvement in conditions of services, retention scheme package, access to free ARVs, construction of infrastructure and recruitment of more health workers.

The Zambian government has proposed to spend 1.4 trillion kwacha (about 438 million U.S. dollars) in this year's budget on the health sector, out of which a substantial amount would be allocated for the recruitment of 800 medical personnel in order to address the problem of inadequate staff in all health institutions country wide.

Source: Xinhua