Ebola crisis: AMA criticises Australia's response to virus outbreak; West Africa cases exceed 10,000

Updated

The Federal Government's response to the Ebola crisis has been chaotic, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) says.

AMA president Professor Brian Owler said the Government was keeping Australians in the dark about their plans and medical professionals wanted a coherent plan to tackle the crisis in West Africa and at home, in case Ebola spreads.

The Federal Health Department this week said that there were about 20 caseworkers trained to care for potential Ebola patients.

But Professor Owler said neither the AMA nor the chief health officer knew who they were or what sort of Ebola training they were being given.

"It's not the AUSMAT (Australian Medical Assistance) teams that you would expect would be trained to do this work," Professor Owler said.

"Who are these people? If anything is going to be irresponsible it would be a last-minute announcement about people who are ill-equipped or ill-trained to go and do this dangerous work".

He has also called on the Government to announce what it is going to do to help tackle the "humanitarian crisis" overseas and what the plans are if a potentially infected person arrives in Australia.

And Professor Owler said he had "big questions" about mandatory quarantines at airports for people returning from affected areas, like those to be set up in the US.

He said the nurse in Cairns, who had quarantined herself after showing signs of fever, had followed the right procedures by avoiding contact with others and alerting authorities.

"People should be reassured that the risk of transmission of that infection is very, very, low, but obviously it is a concern," he said.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten also accused Prime Minister Tony Abbott of not doing "enough to deal with this crisis".

"Logic dictates that you're better off dealing with the outbreak of a deadly and serious contagion closer to the source than waiting until it comes to Australia or comes to Papua New Guinea," he said.

While we drag our feet on this issue, while the Government continues to roll out the tired old excuses about why we can't respond, unfortunately people are going to continue to die AMA president Professor Brian Owler

"If you want to deal with a contagion and a disease which is deadly and spreads very rapidly, you're better off dealing with it early."

The Government has so far refused to send health workers to Africa, arguing that it would be unable to evacuate them if they became infected with the deadly virus.

The US and UK asked for assistance from Australia a month ago.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott acknowledged the requests, but insisted the security of "our people" was paramount to any final decision.

The British are sending 750 people to help in Sierra Leone, while the US has dispatched more than 3,000 to Liberia.

"While we drag our feet on this issue, while the Government continues to roll out the tired old excuses about why we can't respond, unfortunately people are going to continue to die," Professor Owler said.

Number of Ebola cases in West Africa tops 10,000

The death toll from the Ebola epidemic rose to 4,922 out of 10,114 known cases in eight countries through October 23, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

The virus, which reached Mali through a two-year-old girl who died on Friday, now threatens Ivory Coast, having infected people virtually all along its borders with Guinea and Liberia.

The three worst-hit countries of West Africa - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - account for the bulk of the world's worst Ebola outbreak, recording 4,912 deaths out of 10,114 cases, the WHO said in its update.

But the true toll may be three times as much: by a factor of 1.5 in Guinea, 2 in Sierra Leone and 2.5 in Liberia, while the death rate is thought to be about 70 per cent of all cases.

All health workers travelling from Ebola-affected countries to New York City's airports will face a mandatory 21-day quarantine, state governors have announced.

The extra precautions are being put in place after a doctor was admitted to a New York hospital with Ebola days after returning from treating patients in West Africa.

The first person quarantined under the strict new rules tested negative yesterday, New Jersey officials said.

ABC/AAP/Reuters

Topics: diseases-and-disorders, health, infectious-diseases-other, federal-government, doctors-and-medical-professionals, medical-research, australia, sierra-leone, liberia, guinea

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