An international campaign to support rural health workers in the developing world has been launched “to give people caught up in conflict, disaster, and health system collapse the chance to lead healthy lives.”

The Hands Up for Health Workers campaign (www.handsupforhealthworkers.org), run by the UK medical charity Merlin, aims to ensure that all health workers in the developing world receive a regular wage and that workers in remote and isolated areas receive incentives to stay.

The charity also wants to secure funding to train the additional health workers who are needed to deliver essential health care, and to refresh the skills of existing ones. All …