Dominique Faget, AFP |The current Ebola outbreak has so far claimed more than 7,500 lives.

A group of researchers has accused the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of contributing to the Ebola crisis, saying its policies crippled healthcare systems in the nations worst hit by the deadly virus.

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In a paper published in the medical journal Lancet on Monday, researchers from the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine charged that conditions attached to IMF loans hampered the African countries in the epicentre of the outbreak – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone – from mounting an effective response.

Since March, Ebola has claimed more than 7,500 lives in these three countries.

“The IMF didn’t help, it made it worse,” Professor Lawrence King, a Cambridge sociologist and co-author of the report, told FRANCE 24 in a telephone interview.

“The policies had an adverse effect on the public health systems in these countries. Of course that’s not what the IMF wanted, but what it wanted above all was that these countries pay back their debts,” he said.

A spokesperson for the IMF has rejected the claims, saying that the affected countries were doing relatively well prior to the outbreak, but that “the arrival of Ebola has put severe pressure on existing infrastructure, and hard-won improvements are being quickly lost.”

IMF ‘enabled the crisis’

The researchers point to three main reasons why they believe the IMF "contributed to the circumstances that enabled the crisis” in the three West African nations.

First, the IMF demanded economic reforms that reduced government spending. “This hurt the health systems,” King said, noting that governments were told to give debt repayment priority over investments in health and education.

The authors also point to the wage caps imposed on the public sector, “directly impacting the capacity of these nations to hire and adequately pay key healthcare workers such as doctors and nurses”.

“In most countries, health care workers are state employees so it affects them directly,” King said.

Finally, the scholars say the IMF's policy of encouraging decentralised healthcare systems made it hard to mount a coordinated response to deadly diseases like Ebola.

The study was based on policies enforced by the IMF before the current Ebola outbreak, using information extracted from IMF lending programmes between 1990 and 2014.

‘No wage caps’

In an emailed response to FRANCE 24, an IMF spokesperson refuted many of the claims.

“For countries affected by Ebola, we find an increase in health spending as a percent of GDP. In Guinea, spending increased by 0.7 percentage points, in Liberia by 1.6 points and in Sierra Leone by 0.24 points (from 2010 to 2013),” he said, adding that data from the World Bank showed that health outcomes had in fact “improved significantly” in the past decade.

He also rejected claims that the IMF required the three countries to impose so-called wage caps on their public sector bills.

“In fact, IMF programmes in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone have not had any limits on the wage bill during the period 2000-2014.”

The spokesman said the fund had provided $130 million to help battle Ebola, and was working to raise the same amount next year.

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