United Nations officials are considering making a special appeal to donors to address dire shortages in medical supplies.

These are fields where there is a dire shortage of trained personnel.

What with dire shortages and rampant inflation, survival is a sometime thing.

At the same time, soaring prices have resulted in a dire shortage of paper money, causing salaries simply to go unpaid.

With unemployment rates below 5 percent here, business leaders have complained recently of a dire shortage of trained workers.

With a dire shortage of candidates to the priesthood, why won't the church consider ordaining women?

However, I wonder how many Americans realize just how dire the shortage is.

The measure was justified, he said, by dire shortages of medicine, raw materials and consumer products.

One result is a dire shortage of homes affordable to the working poor.

The wait is so long because of the dire shortage of organ donors.