The United Kingdom has placed Nigeria and 53 other countries on the red list of countries that should not be actively targeted for recruitment by health and social care employers.
This comes after the World Health Organisation listed Nigeria and other 54 countries as facing the most pressing health workforce challenges related to universal health coverage.
The UK government titled ‘Code of Practice for the international recruitment of Health and social care personnel in England,’ it said country identification follows the methodology contained in the 10-year review of relevance and effectiveness of the WHO global code of practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel.
The countries placed on the red list of ‘No active recruitment’ in alphabetical order are Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Kiribati, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lesotho, Liberia.
Other countries are Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Federated States of Micronesia, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Samoa, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Republic of Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
