Sumbawanga — RUKWA Region faces an acute shortage of trained medical staff, a situation that compels one medical doctor to attend to more than 200,000 patients, according to Rukwa Regional Medical Officer (RMO), Dr John Gurisha who made the revelation recently during an exclusive interview with 'Daily News on Saturday'.

The deficit is more pronounced in rural areas where unskilled medical personnel run health facilities instead of well-trained staff. He further expounded that the region has only four medical specialists, nine medical doctors, 59 clinical officers, and only 142 trained nurses, an equivalent of 25 per cent of the actual demand.

Dr Gurisha revealed that HIV/Aids prevalence rate in Rukwa region dropped to 4.9 per cent in 2012 from six per cent over the last seven years , a development which has been attributed to positive behavioural change. According to the RMO, Sumbawanga Municipal Council has the highest HIV/Aids prevalence rate of 6.5 per cent while Nkasi District recorded the lowest prevalence rate of 3.1 per cent.