Positive talks about Ebola team deployment

Australia appears closer to sending medical teams to fight the Ebola crisis in West Africa. Source: AAP

THE federal government has been asked by the United States and United Kingdom to send medical staff to Liberia and Sierra Leone to help combat the outbreak, which has so far killed nearly 5000 people.

Despite pressure the government has so far declined to deploy Australian health workers to West Africa, citing a lack of an evacuation or treatment plan should they become infected. The government has been in talks with the US, UK and other European nations about what treatment options Australian doctors could receive should they agree to send their doctors abroad. Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Secretary Peter Varghese said discussions in the past few days about what access health workers could receive had been “very positive”. “More recently we have had indications that there might be access available,” he told a Senate estimates hearing in Canberra on Thursday. “But the details of that access is something that we still have to work through.” The UK and US are building field hospitals in Sierra Leone and Liberia in the event their personnel on the ground required treatment for Ebola infection. Questions have been raised about whether Australian staff could be treated at these facilities. Mr Varghese said the government required a “level of comfort” before it consider deploying its teams abroad, and so far no “blanket assurances” had been offered. Greens senator Richard di Natale said the government was creating a “straw man” if it wanted broad assurances about treatment options because no such guarantee was possible in the outbreak zone. A separate estimates hearing was told this week the government’s specialised medical assistance teams were at least two weeks away from being adequately trained to deal with the Ebola virus.