Julie Bishop has said a girl was the first to be discharged from an Australian-funded Ebola centre. Source: AAP
THREE patients have been successfully treated and discharged from an Australian-funded Ebola treatment centre in Sierra Leone.
FOREIGN Minister Julie Bishop said an 11-year-old girl was the first to be discharged and has been released into the care of her family.
Ms Bishop said the girl’s father had paid tribute to the Australian and New Zealand health professionals who treated his daughter. She said 37 patients had been admitted to the facility, which was treating 26 people. Ebola has killed more than 7900 people, almost all of them in west Africa. The World Health Organisation says more than 20,200 cases of the virus have been reported since the outbreak began in December 2013. British engineers built the 100-bed centre at Hastings airfield, near the Sierra Leone capital, and handed it to the Australian mission in mid-December. There are 32 Australian and New Zealand health professionals at the facility, and four have returned home after completing their deployment. Ms Bishop said a wall had been erected at the centre so surviving patients could place their hand prints on it. The 11-year-old girl was the first to do so. “I’m pleased that the treatment centre is under way. That it is making a difference, that we are saving lives,” she told reporters in Perth. The clinic’s operation comes after months of criticism that the federal government’s initial response was “lethally inadequate”. British nurse Pauline Cafferkey is in a critical but stable condition in hospital in London after contracting Ebola while working at a British-built treatment centre in Sierra Leone.