Almost 30 countries are highly vulnerable to an Ebola-style epidemic which could jeopardise the future of millions of children, a charity has warned.

A new report by Save the Children ranks the world’s poorest countries on the state of their public health systems and finds that 28 have weaker defences in place than Liberia – one of the places worst-hit by Ebola.

By comparing details such as the numbers of health workers, government spending on health and mortality rates, it found that Somalia ranks the lowest followed by Chad, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Haiti, Ethiopia, Central African Republic (Car), Guinea, Niger, and Mali.

The agency warns that an increasingly mobile population intensifies the threat of infectious disease outbreaks like Ebola, which has killed more than 9,500 people in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

The emergence each year of two new zoonotic diseases − those that can be passed between animals and humans − also puts children at even greater risk, the charity warns.

It is calling on the international community to invest in stronger health systems to avoid a future virus from spreading even faster and further.

The report, A Wake Up Call: Lessons From Ebola for the world’s health systems, sets out a number of actions, including making a commitment towards enabling everyone in the world to have access to essential healthcare.

Lessons need to be learnt and applied to other vulnerable countries around the world

It argues that the international relief effort in West Africa due to Ebola has cost €3.84 billion, whereas strengthening the health systems of those countries in the first place would have cost just €1.41 billion.

The charity warns that alongside immediate, much-needed support to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, lessons need to be learnt and applied to other vulnerable countries around the world.

Its chief executive, Justin Forsyth, said: “A robust health system could have stopped Ebola in its tracks saving thousands of children’s lives and billions of pounds.

“Without trained health workers and a functioning health system in place, it’s more likely that an epidemic could spread across international borders with catastrophic effects.

“The world woke up to Ebola but now people need to wake up to the scandal of weak health systems, which not only risk new diseases spreading, but also contribute to the deaths of 17,000 children each day from preventable causes like pneumonia and malaria.”

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