Ebola outbreak: Australia will not send health workers to west Africa - MSF rejects cash and asks for medics

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Ebola outbreak: Australia will not send health workers to west Africa

Foreign minister Julie Bishop says Australia could not bring people home if they contract the disease

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Sunday 28 September 2014 18.57 EDT
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She said the Australian Defence Force and health department advised it was not possible to safely evacuate infected health workers back to Australia.

?The Australian government is not about to put at risk Australian health workers in the absence of credible evacuation plans that could bring our people back to Australia,? she told reporters in Melbourne.

The government is negotiating with Britain and the US on evacuations.
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-health-workers-home-from-african-ebola-zones

 

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Re: Ebola outbreak: Australia will not send health workers to west Africa - MSF rejects cash and asks for medics

MSF rejects Ebola cash and asks for medics

Aid group says it does not want $2.2m Australian donation because it needs medics in West Africa instead.

Last updated: 02 Oct 2014 11:53

Global aid agency Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has said it rejected cash for the Ebola response from Australia, asking the country instead to deploy desperately-needed medical teams to West Africa.

Canberra initially offered 2.5m Australian dollars ($2.2m), the charity said on Wednesday, before providing an additional donation of 18m Australian dollars ($16m) on Thursday.

"The government has assessed that, at this stage, financial contributions are the best and most efficient way Australia can make a rapid contribution to the global response and support front-line health services in the affected countries,'' Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said in a statement.

She said that the additional donation was provided in response to a UN appeal for $50m to meet needs over the next month.

But MSF said the previous day that it had reached its logistical limitations and could not increase its assistance in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, the three countries most affected by the epidemic which killed at least 3,000 people.

"MSF simply does not have the capacity to do this job alone. We are already turning people away from our clinics which have been stretched beyond over capacity for weeks," it said in a statement.

"Australia must stop making excuses to join the fight against Ebola."
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http://www.aljazeera.com/news/afric...bola-cash-asks-medics-201410210414437521.html