MASHAI, Lesotho — At a clinic in the mountains, reached only by crossing a churning river in a rowboat, Dr. Paul Young, a pediatrician raised in the housing projects of Savannah, Ga., soothed a fussy baby. She stared at him, fascinated, as he made soft popping sounds with his lips and listened to her heart through a stethoscope.
"I used to be afraid to look at the babies' test results," he said after examining a bunch of children, who were born healthy despite having H.I.V.-positive mothers. "But now, most of them are negative."
Dr. Young, 33, and the nurses he trained here have persuaded many pregnant women to get tested and take the drugs that prevent them from passing the disease to their newborns. It is all part of a charitable effort he joined in 2008 for $40,000 a year and the chance to work in this AIDS-afflicted country, which has just one pediatrician in its entire government health system.
"If this was the last thing I did, if this was the only job I ever had in life, I would have served my purpose," he said.
Dr. Young represents the surging interest of young Americans in combating the deadly epidemics ravaging the world's poorest countries, fueled in part by the billions of dollars that the American government, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other organizations have poured into international health in recent years.
Across sub-Saharan Africa, an extreme shortage of health workers remains a critical barrier to fighting illness. The region bears a quarter of the world's burden of disease, but has only 3 percent of its health care workers, according to the World Health Organization.
Public health experts say efforts like the one involving Dr. Young have proved particularly useful on a continent that sorely needs pediatricians, surgeons and other specialists to train African doctors and nurses in the field.
And demand for such opportunities is rising. More than 70 universities in the United States and Canada now offer formal academic programs in global health, most of them developed in just the past five years, according to the Consortium of Universities for Global Health.
"Today's students really want to make a difference in the world," said Michael H. Merson, director of Duke University's Global Health Institute. "They have a passion for sacrifice and service. It reminds me of the '60s."
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