120 doctors for 8 million people: South Sudan's health-care gap - msnbc.com (blog)

As in many developing nations, international aid is both an invaluable help to South Sudan and a crutch that sometimes enables it to avoid reality. International Rescue Committee (IRC) Community Case Management Officer Pitia Jacob (L) walks with Paulino Angui Akot in Majak Ajuong, in South Sudan, on June 2, 2012. All pictures made available to msnbc.com on July 10, 2012.

A young girl with malaria rests in the in-patient ward of the Malualkon Primary Health Care Center in Malualkon, in Northern Bahr el Ghazal on June 1, 2012.

Blood samples to be tested for malaria are seen at the Aweil State Hospital in Aweil on June 2, 2012.

Left to right: Toma Adeng, Maria Abuk, Mary Achol, and Martha Akuch, who work as voluntary birth attendants, pose for a photograph at the Malualkon Primary Health Care Center in Malualkon on June 1, 2012.

A handwritten medical chart is seen on the wall of the Malualkon Primary Health Care Center in Malualkon on June 1, 2012.

Men carry bags of food while women wait for their rations at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) food distribution site in Pibor on June 25, 2012.

A U.N. helicopter lands at the airstrip in Pibor on June 26, 2012. Development experts have grown more sophisticated in recent decades about how they deliver aid. But in fragile states such as South Sudan, getting the balance right between helping a country and helping that country help itself remains incredibly difficult.