I've been to Liberia twice and seen that impoverished nation's health-care system as it was overwhelmed by Ebola, which all but eliminated regular services for a time. (Here's the story I wrote about that.) So it was somewhat alarming to come across the notion that, under normal circustances, the quality of the health care in Liberia isn't even close to the worst in Africa, Asia and elsewhere in the developing world.

That's the main message in a new report from the nonprofit organization Save the Children, which ranked 72 countries on six measures of health-care provision for children, including the newborn mortality rate, the number of health-care workers per 10,000 population, immunizations and skilled birth attendance.

The result, Save the Children found, is that 28 nations fared more poorly than Liberia (which ranked 44th), including Nigeria (70th), Haiti (68th), Pakistan (57th), India (55th) and Kenya (47th). The two other Ebola-ravaged countries, Sierra Leone (46th) and Guinea (65th), also fell below Liberia. Somalia is last at 72nd.

In part, this illustrates the fact that Liberia had made some strides in maternal and child health in the 11 years after its civil war ended and before the Ebola outbreak began. But mostly it reflects the pitiful amount of money spent on health care in developing nations. The World Health organization estimates that $86 per person per year is the minimum spending required to provide essential health-care services. In 2012, Guinea spent $9, Sierra Leone spent $16 and Liberia spent $20, according to the report. All three figures were increases from 2006.

Germany, in contrast, spent $3,592, the United Kingdom $3,009, the United States $4,126 and Norway $7,704.

The report contends that for $1.58 billion -- about a third of the $4.3 billion cost of the Ebola response so far -- the health-care systems of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea could be brought up to minimum standards.

Ebola ravaged the three West African countries for a number of reasons, including unfamiliarity with a virus that previously had been confined to the rain forest; unsafe burial practices and denial among the populations of Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. The World Health Organization and nations such as the United States that have the capacity to intervene were way too slow to recognize the danger and help.

To date, nearly 24,000 people have been infected and more than 9,600 of them have died. In recent months, however, the number of cases has fallen sharply in Liberia and the situation has improved in Sierra Leone.

But there is also little doubt that a more robust health-care system in the three countries could have helped. Nigeria (which, as noted above, fared poorly on Save the Children's list) mounted such a response when the epidemic threatened to spread there, and stamped it out. Despite initial stumbles, so did the United States.

"The current Ebola virus disease outbreak in western Africa highlights how an epidemic can proliferate rapidly and pose huge problems in the absence of a strong health system capable of a rapid and integrated response," the report quotes the World Health Organization as saying in one bulletin.

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Twenty-eight countries have worse health care systems than Liberias