File photo shows people injured in a school bus crash being attended to by medical staff in Karatu District, northern Tanzania, on May 6, 2017. (Xinhua)

DAR ES SALAAM, July 8 (Xinhua) -- The Tanzanian government said Friday it had issued permits to employ 3,000 health workers to fill the gap left after the country sacked thousands of medics in April over fake academic certificates.

"Employment process of the health workers will start next week," Tanzanian Minister for Health Ummy Mwalimu said in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam.

Mwalimu was reacting to reports on Thursday in which regional medical officers appealed to the government to urgently employ 7,304 new health workers to fill the gap left by the sacked workers.

Leonard Subi, Chairman of Regional Medical Officers in Tanzania Mainland, said the 7,000-plus health workers should be employed promptly before the situation in hospitals was out of hand.

Mwalimu said the government will next year issue permits for employing other 4,000 health workers.

At least 7,000 health workers have been expelled since earlier this year after being discovered to have earned employment using fake academic certificates.

The saga left a shortage in the sector's workforce reaching 49.5 percent, which is equivalent to half of the health workers needed.

In April, President John Magufuli sacked 9,932 workers who were found using fake certificates, mostly health workers, paralyzing medical delivery in dispensaries and hospitals across the country.