ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Australia’s prime minister said Thursday he was considering a personal request from President Barack Obama to send a medical team to Africa to fight Ebola, but that priority remains responding to an outbreak in the Asia-Pacific region.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott discussed the Ebola crisis with Obama in a telephone conversation late Wednesday. Abbott said he was “carefully considering” requests from the United States and Britain to send personnel to West Africa, where the disease has infected some 9,900 people and killed more than 4,800 in the hardest hit countries — Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
A team of four doctors and 16 nurses are ready to fly from the Australia’s northernmost city of Darwin if there’s an outbreak in Australia’s region, he said.
“While we are responding in West Africa as we should, our priority is inevitably … here at home and in our region,” Abbott told Parliament.
Australia has donated 18 million Australian dollars ($16 million) to fight the disease in West Africa. But the government won’t send personnel until it has guarantees that any Australian who became infected in Africa received adequate medical treatment.
The government argues that Australia is too distant from Africa for such a medical evacuation, so a third country would need to care for an Australian patient. Japan and South Korea have recently committed medical personnel to Africa despite also being far removed from there.
Foreign Department head Peter Varghese said his office was getting closer to striking an evacuation deal in talks with the United States, Britain, France, Switzerland, Norway, Spain, Italy, Germany and the European Union.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
