- The lack of health personnel in poor countries is a serious threat to the UN Millennium Development Goals and the fight against the hiv/aids epidemic, said Minister of International Development Hilde F. Johnson.

On Thursday 24 February at 09.00, the Minister of International Development will open an international meeting on the health personnel crisis in Africa at the Soria Moria Hotel and Conference Centre in Oslo.

Approximately 100 participants from international organisations, representatives of the authorities of African countries and experts on health and hiv/aids will gather for the two-day meeting, which is being arranged by Norad and the Foreign Ministry.

The aim is to arrive at concrete action plans for dealing with the health personnel crisis in the most severely affected countries in Africa. Improving public health is a key means of achieving the UN goal of halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty by 2015.

- Substantial economic resources have now been mobilised in the fight against aids and other diseases that severely affect Africa. But the acute lack of health personnel poses an enormous challenge. The global lack of and demand for educated health personnel has resulted in an inequitable distribution of human resources. We have to do something about this, said the Minister.

Press contact: Wera Helstrøm, ph: +47 99 40 93 23