Low-Income Countries

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Why do High-income Countries Offer Health Assistance to Low-income Countries?
1. High-income countries have a stable healthcare system in which all organizations, institutions, resources, and people’s primary purpose is to improve health.1 They serve as role models for other countries because they provide high quality healthcare to their citizens. For example, The United Kingdom’s National Health Service (NHS) is founded on, “medical treatment covering all requirements will be provided for all citizens by a national health service.”2 The benefits of medical care is unevenly distributed, or not distributed at all in low-income countries. Low-income countries health officials need guidance to commit to their citizens the way high-income countries do, which is healthcare for all.
2. High-income countries want to improve worldwide health. Low-income countries are their main focus because they are suffering the most in taking care of themselves. For example, Pakistan has a burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases. It is one of the three countries with endemic polio, and the sixth highest with burden of tuberculosis.3 Eradicating these preventable diseases allows people to lead productive lives by participating socially in their community, and being able to work. Furthermore, it reduces the spread of infectious diseases to other countries.
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Low-income countries lack sufficient resources. The number of health workers in proportion to the population is small. It is also challenging for people to access healthcare services. For example, Liberia has experienced destruction of its infrastructures, displacement of health workers, and destruction of medical supplies due to prolonged years of war.4 Ninety-percent of health facilities were partially or wholly destroyed, and 51 physicians and 297 midwives of Liberian nationality remained due to their civil war.4 Low income-countries that lack resources to deliver healthcare is a top priority for high-income