POLICIES advocated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have contributed to poorly prepared health systems in the countries with Ebola outbreaks in west Africa, academics have said.

Researchers from Cambridge University's department of sociology, joined by colleagues from Oxford University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, examined links between the IMF and the rapid spread of the disease.

They said IMF programmes over the years have imposed heavy constraints on the development of effective health systems in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - the cradle of the Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 6,800 since March this year.

Economic policy reforms advocated by the IMF have undermined the capacity of health systems in these three nations - systems already fragile from legacies of conflict and state failure - to cope with infectious disease outbreaks and other such emergencies, they added.

"A major reason why the Ebola outbreak spread so rapidly was the weakness of healthcare systems in the region, and it would be unfortunate if underlying causes were overlooked," said lead author and Cambridge sociologist Alexander Kentikelenis.

"Policies advocated by the IMF have contributed to under-funded, insufficiently staffed, and poorly prepared health systems in the countries with Ebola outbreaks," he said.

The researchers said that by reviewing the policies enforced by the IMF before the outbreak - extracting information from the IMF lending programmes between 1990 and 2014 - they were able to examine the effects on the three countries, and identified three factors that led to further weakening of their healthcare systems.

One was that the IMF required economic reforms that reduced government spending.

The researchers said: "Such policies have been extremely strict, absorbing funds that could be directed to meeting pressing health challenges."

Although the IMF responded to concerns raised about the impact of these policies by incorporating "poverty-reduction expenditures" that aimed to boost health budgets, the researchers found these conditions were often not met.

"In 2013, just before the Ebola outbreak, the three countries met the IMF's economic directives, yet all failed to raise their social spending despite pressing health needs," said Professor Lawrence King, co-author and Cambridge sociologist.

Second, the IMF often requires caps on the public sector wage bill, which has a direct impact on the capacity of these nations to hire and adequately pay key healthcare workers such as doctors and nurses.

Third, the IMF campaigns for decentralised healthcare systems. While the idea behind this is to make healthcare more responsive to local needs, the researchers said that in practice this makes it difficult to mobilise coordinated responses to outbreaks of deadly diseases such as Ebola.

In recent months, the IMF has announced 430 million dollars (£274 million) of funding to help combat Ebola in wes